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The Complete JForks of Frank Norris 



BLIX : MORAN of the 
LADY LETTY: ESSAYS 
ON AUTHORSHIP ^ 


Frank Norris 


new tork P. F. COLLIER & SON publishers 


/ 



COPYRIGHT, 1899, BY 
FRANK A. MUNSEY 

COPYRIGHT, 1899, BY 
DOUBLEDAY & MC CLURE CO. 





•i 


DEDICATED TO 


M? Jflotbtr 


A — IV — Norris 










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SOURCE UNKNOWN 



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CONTENTS 


BLIX 

PAGE 

Chapter I 7 

Chapter II 13 

Chapter III 21 

Chapter IV 28 

Chapter V 42 

Chapter VI 53 

Chapter VII 65 

Chapter VIII 73 

Chapter IX 84 

Chapter X 91 

Chapter XI 102 

Chapter XII hi 

Chapter XIII - 118 

Chapter XIV 7 125 

MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 

I. Shanghaied 137 

II. A Nautical Education 146 

III. The Lady Letty 154 

IV. Moran 164 

V. A Girl Captain 174 

(3) 


4 


Contents 


PAGE 


VI. A Sea Mystery 183 

VII. Beach-Combers . v . 19 1 

VIII. A Run for Land 200 

* IX. The Capture of Hoang 209 

X. A Battle 218 

XI. A Change in Leaders 224 

XII. New Conditions 234 

XIII. Moran Sternersen 243 

XIV. The Ocean is Calling for You 248 

ESSAYS ON AUTHORSHIP 

The Responsibilities of the Novelist 255 

The True Reward of the Novelist 260 

The Novel with a “Purpose” 265 

Story-Tellers vs. Novelists 270 

The Need of a Literary Conscience 275 

A Neglected Epic 279 

The Frontier Gone at Last 283 

The Great American Novelist 290 

New York as a Literary Centre 293 

The American Public and “Popular” Fiction .... 297 

Child Stories for Adults 300 

Newspaper Criticisms and American Fiction .... 303 

Novelists to Order — While You Wait 306 

The “Nature” Revival in Literature 310 

The Mechanics of Fiction 313 

Fiction Writing as a Business 317 


Contents 


5 

PAGE 

The “Volunteer Manuscript” 322 

Retail Bookseller: Literary Dictator 328 

An American School of Fiction? 332 

Novelists of the Future 337 

A Plea for Romantic Fiction 341 

A Problem in Fiction 345 

Why Women Should Write the Best Novels .... 348 

Simplicity in Art 352 

Salt and Sincerity 356 





B L I X 


I 

It had just struck nine from the cuckoo clock that hung over the 
mantelpiece in the dining-room, when Victorine brought in the 
halved watermelon and set it in front of Mr. Bessemer’s plate. 
Then she went down to the front door for the damp, twisted roll 
of the Sunday morning’s paper, and came back and rang the break- 
fast-bell for the second time. 

As the family still hesitated to appear, she went to the bay win- 
dow at the end of the room, and stood there for a moment looking 
out. The view was wonderful. The Bessemers lived upon the 
Washington Street hill, almost at its very summit, in a flat in the 
third story of the building. The contractor had been clever enough 
to reverse the position of kitchen and dining-room, so that the latter 
room was at the rear of the house. From its window one could com- 
mand a sweep of San Francisco Bay and the Contra Costa shore, 
from Mount Diablo, along past Oakland, Berkeley, Sausalito, and 
Mount Tamalpais, out to the Golden Gate, the Presidio, the ocean, 
and even — on very clear days — to the Farrallone islands. 

For some time Victorine stood looking down at the great ex- 
panse of land and sea, then faced about with an impatient exclama- 
tion. 

On Sundays all the week-day regime of the family was deranged, 
and breakfast was a movable feast, to be had any time after seven 
or before half-past nine. As Victorine was pouring the ice-water, 
Mr. Bessemer himself came in, and addressed himself at once to 
his meal, without so much as a thought of waiting for the others. 

He was a little round man. He wore a skull-cap to keep his 
bald spot warm, and read his paper through a reading-glass. The 
expression of his face, wrinkled and bearded, the eyes shadowed by 
enormous gray eyebrows, was that of an amiable gorilla. 

Bessemer was one of those men who seem entirely disassociated 

( 7 ) 


8 


Blix 


from their families. Only on rare and intense occasions did his 
paternal spirit or instincts assert themselves. At table he talked 
but little. Though devotedly fond of his eldest daughter, she was 
a puzzle and a stranger to him. His interests and hers were abso- 
lutely dissimilar. The children he seldom spoke to but to reprove ; 
while Howard, the son, the ten-year-old and terrible infant of the 
household, he always referred to as “that boy.” 

He was an abstracted, self-centred old man, with but two hob- 
bies — homoeopathy and the mechanism of clocks. But he had a 
strange way of talking to himself in a low voice, keeping up a 
running, half-whispered comment upon his own doings and actions ; 
as, for instance, upon this occasion: “Nine o’clock — the clock’s a 
little fast. I think I’ll wind my watch. No, I’ve forgotten my 
watch. Watermelon this morning, eh? Where’s a knife ? I’ll have 
a little salt. Victorine’s forgot the spoons — ha, here’s a spoon! 
No, it’s a knife I want.” 

After he had finished his watermelon, and while Victorine was 
pouring his coffee, the two children came in, scrambling to their 
places, and drumming on the table with their knife-handles. 

The son and heir, Howard, was very much a boy. He played 
baseball too well to be a very good boy, and for the sake of his own 
self-respect maintained an attitude of perpetual revolt against his 
older sister, who, as much as possible, took the place of the mother, 
long since dead. Under her supervision, Howard blacked his own 
shoes every morning before breakfast, changed his underclothes 
twice a week, and was dissuaded from playing with the dentist’s 
son who lived three doors below and who had St. Vitus’ dance. 

His little sister was much more tractable. She had been chris- 
tened Alberta, and was called Snooky. She promised to be pretty 
when she grew up, but was at this time in that distressing transi- 
tional stage between twelve and fifteen; was long-legged, and en- 
dowed with all the awkwardness of a colt. Her shoes were still 
innocent of heels ; but on those occasions when she was allowed to 
wear her tiny first pair of corsets she was exalted to an almost 
celestial pitch of silent ecstasy. The clasp of the miniature stays 
around her small body was like the embrace of a little lover, and 
awoke in her ideas that were as vague, as immature and unformed 
as the straight little figure itself. 

When Snooky and Howard had seated themselves, but one chair 
— at the end of the breakfast-table, opposite Mr. Bessemer — re- 
mained vacant. 


Blix 


9 

"Is your sister — is Miss Travis going to have her breakfast now? 
Is she got up yet?” inquired Victorine of Howard and Snooky, as 
she pushed the cream pitcher out of Howard’s reach. It was sig- 
nificant of Mr. Bessemer’s relations with his family that Victorine 
did not address her question to him. 

“Yes, yes, she’s coming,” said both the children, speaking to- 
gether; and Howard added: “Here she comes now.” 

Travis Bessemer came in. Even in San Francisco, where all 
women are more or less beautiful, Travis passed for a beautiful 
girl. She was young, but tall as most men, and solidly, almost 
heavily built. Her shoulders were broad, her chest was deep, her 
neck round and firm. She radiated health ; there were exuberance 
and vitality in the very touch of her foot upon the carpet, and there 
was that cleanliness about her, that freshness, that suggested a 
recent plunge in the surf and a “constitutional” along the beach. 
One felt that here was stamina, good physical force, and fine ani- 
mal vigor. Her arms were large, her wrists were large, and her 
fingers did not taper. Her hair was of a brown so light as to be 
almost yellow. In fact, it would be safer to call it yellow from the 
start — not golden nor flaxen, but plain, honest yellow. The skin of 
her face was clean and white, except where it flushed to a most 
charming pink upon her smooth, cool cheeks. Her lips were full 
and red, her chin very round and a little salient. Curiously enough, 
her eyes were small — small, but of the deepest, deepest brown, and 
always twinkling and alight, as though she were just ready to smile 
or had just done smiling, one could not say which. And nothing 
could have been more delightful than these sloe-brown, glinting 
little eyes of hers set off by her white skin and yellow hair. 

She impressed one as being a very normal girl : nothing morbid 
about her, nothing nervous or false or overwrought. You did not 
expect to find her introspective. You felt sure that her mental life 
was not at all the result of thoughts and reflections germinating 
from within, but rather of impressions and sensations that came to 
her from without. There was nothing extraordinary about Travis. 
She never had her vagaries, was not moody — depressed one day 
and exalted the next. She was just a good, sweet, natural, healthy- 
minded, healthy-bodied girl, honest, strong, self-reliant, and good- 
tempered. 

Though she was not yet dressed for church, there was style in 
her to the pointed tips of her patent-leather slippers. She wore a 
heavy black overskirt that rustled in delicious fashion over the 


IO 


Blix 


colored silk skirt beneath, and a white shirt-waist, striped black, 
and starched to a rattling stiffness. Her neck was swathed tight 
and high with a broad ribbon of white satin, while around her waist, 
in place of a belt, she wore the huge dog-collar of a St. Bernard — 
a chic little idea which was all her own, and of which she was very 
proud. 

She was as trig and trim and crisp as a crack yacht: not a pin 
was loose, not a seam that did not fall in its precise right line; and 
with every movement there emanated from her a barely perceptible 
delicious feminine odor — an odor that was in part perfume, but 
mostly a subtle, vague smell, charming beyond words, that came 
from her hair, her neck, her arms — her whole sweet personality. 
She was nineteen years old. 

She sat down to breakfast and ate heartily, though with her 
attention divided between Howard — who was atrociously bad, as 
usual of a Sunday morning — and her father’s plate. Mr. Bessemer 
was as like as not to leave the table without any breakfast at all 
unless his fruit, chops, and coffee were actually thrust under his 
nose. 

“Papum,” she called, speaking clear and distinct, as though to 
the deaf, “there’s your coffee there at your elbow ; be careful, you’ll 
tip it over. Victorine, push his cup further on the table. Is it 
strong enough for you, Papum?” 

“Eh? Ah, yes — yes — yes,” murmured the old man, looking 
vaguely about him ; “coffee, to be sure” — and he emptied the cup at a 
single draught, hardly knowing whether it was coffee or tea. “Now, 
I’ll take a roll,” he continued, in a monotonous murmur. “Where are 
the rolls? Here they are. Hot rolls are bad for my digestion — I 
ought to eat bread. I think I eat too much. Where’s my place in 
the paper? — always lose my place in the paper. Clever editorials 
this fellow Eastman writes, unbiassed by party prejudice — un- 
biassed — unbiassed.” His voice died to a whisper. 

The breakfast proceeded, Travis supervising everything that 
went forward, even giving directions to Victorine as to the hour 
for serving dinner. It was while she was talking to Victorine as to 
this matter that Snooky began to whine. 

“Stop !” 

“And tell Maggie,” pursued Travis, “to fricassee her chicken, 
and not to have it too well done — ” 

“Sto-o-op!” whined Snooky again. 

“And leave the heart out for Papum. He likes the heart — ” 


Blix 


1 1 

“Sto-o-op !” 

“Unbiassed by prejudice/’ murmured Mr. Bessemer, “vigorous 
and to the point. I’ll have another roll.” 

“Pa, make Howard stop !” 

“Howard!” exclaimed Travis; “what is it now?” 

“Howard’s squirting watermelon-seeds at me,” whined Snooky, 
“and Pa won’t make him stop.” 

“Oh, I didn’t so!” vociferated Howard. “I only held one be- 
tween my fingers, and it just kind of shot out.” 

“You’ll come upstairs with me in just five minutes,” announced 
Travis, “and get ready for Sunday-school.” 

Howard knew that his older sister’s decisions were as the laws 
of the Persians, and found means to finish his breakfast within the 
specified time, though not without protest. Once upstairs, however, 
the usual Sunday morning drama of despatching him to Sunday- 
school in presentable condition was enacted. At every moment his 
voice could be heard uplifted in shrill expostulation and debate. 
No, his hands were clean enough, and he didn’t see why he had to 
wear that little old pink tie ; and, oh ! his new shoes were too tight 
and hurt his sore toe; and he wouldn’t, he wouldn’t — no, not if he 
were killed for it, change his shirt. Not for a moment did Travis 
lose her temper with him. But “very well,” she declared at length, 
“the next time she saw that little Miner girl she would tell her that 
he had said she was his beau-heart. Now would he hold still while 
she brushed his hair?” 

At a few minutes before eleven Travis and her father went to 
church. They were Episcopalians, and for time out of mind had 
rented a half-pew in the church of their denomination on Cali- 
fornia Street, not far from Chinatown. By noon the family reas- 
sembled at dinner-table, where Mr. Bessemer ate his chicken-heart 
— after Travis had thrice reminded him of it — and expressed him- 
self as to the sermon and the minister’s theology: sometimes to his 
daughter and sometimes to himself. 

After dinner Howard and Snooky foregathered in the nursery 
with their beloved lead soldiers; Travis went to her room to write 
letters ; and Mr. Bessemer sat in the bay window of the dining-room 
reading the paper from end to end. 

At five Travis bestirred herself. It was Victorine’s afternoon 
out. Travis set the table, spreading a cover of blue denim edged 
with white braid, which showed off the silver and the set of delft 
— her great and never-ending joy — to great effect. Then she tied 


12 


Blix 


her apron about her, and went into the kitchen to make the mayon- 
naise dressing for the potato salad, to slice the ham, and to help 
the cook (a most inefficient Irish person, taken on only for that 
month during the absence of the family's beloved and venerated 
Sing Wo) in the matter of preparing the Sunday evening tea. 

Tea was had at half-past five. Never in the history of the fam- 
ily had its menu varied : cold ham, potato salad, pork and beans, 
canned fruit, chocolate, and the inevitable pitcher of ice-water. 

In the absence of Victorine, Maggie waited on the table, very 
uncomfortable in her one good dress and stiff white apron. She 
stood off from the table, making awkward dabs at it from time to 
time. In her excess of deference she developed a clumsiness that 
was beyond all expression. She passed the plates upon the wrong 
side, and remembered herself with a broken apology at inopportune 
moments. She dropped a spoon, she spilled the ice-water. She 
handled the delft cups and platters with an exaggerated solicitude, 
as though they were glass bombs. She brushed the crumbs into 
their laps instead of into the crumb-tray, and at last, when she had 
sat even Travis' placid nerves in a jangle, was dismissed to the 
kitchen, and retired with a gasp of unspeakable relief. 

Suddenly there came a prolonged trilling of the electric bell, and 
Howard flashed a grin at Travis. Snooky jumped up and pushed 
back, crying out : “I’ll go ! I’ll go !” 

Mr. Bessemer glanced nervously at Travis. “That’s Mr. Rivers, 
isn’t it, daughter?” Travis smiled. “Well, I think I’ll — I think I’d 
better — ” he began. 

“No,” said Travis, “I don’t want you to, Papum ; you sit right 
where you are. How absurd!” 

The old man dropped obediently back into his seat. 

“That’s all right, Maggie,” said Travis as the cook reappeared 
from the pantry. “Snooky went.” 

“Huh !” exclaimed Howard, his grin widening. “Huh !” 

“And remember one thing, Howard,” remarked Travis calmly; 
“don’t you ever again ask Mr. Rivers for a nickel to put in your bank.” 

Mr. Bessemer roused up. “Did that boy do that?” he in- 
quired sharply of Travis. 

“Well, well, he won’t do it again,” said Travis soothingly. The 
old man glared for an instant at Howard, who shifted uneasily in 
his seat. But meanwhile Snooky had clambered down to the outside 
door, and before anything further could be said young Rivers came 
into the dining-room. 


For some reason, never made sufficiently clear, Rivers’ parents 
had handicapped him from the baptismal font with the prenomen of 
Conde, which, however, upon Anglo-Saxon tongues, had been 
promptly modified to Condy, or even, among his familiar and inti- 
mate friends, to Conny. Asked as to his birthplace — for no Cali- 
fornian assumes that his neighbor is born in the State — Condy was 
wont to reply that he was “bawn ’n’ rais’ ” in Chicago ; “but,” he 
always added, “I couldn’t help that, you know.” His people had 
come West in the early eighties, just in time to bury the father in 
alien soil. Condy was an only child. He was educated at the State 
University, had a finishing year at Yale, and a few months after his 
return home was taken on the staff of the San Francisco “Daily 
Times” as an associate editor of its Sunday supplement. For Condy 
had developed a taste and talent in the matter of writing. Short 
stories were his mania. He had begun by an inoculation of the 
Kipling virus, had suffered an almost fatal attack of Harding 
Davis, and had even been affected by Maupassant. He “went in” 
for accuracy of detail ; held that if one wrote a story involving fire- 
men one should have, or seem to have, every detail of the depart- 
ment at his fingers’ ends, and should “bring in” to the tale all man- 
ner of technical names and cant phrases. 

Much of his work on the Sunday supplement of “The Times” 
was of the hack order — special articles, write-ups, and interviews. 
About once a month, however, he wrote a short story, and of late, 
now that he was convalescing from Maupassant and had begun to 
be somewhat himself, these stories had improved in quality, and 
one or two had even been copied in the Eastern journals. He earned 
$100 a month. 

When Snooky had let him in, Rivers dashed up the stairs of the 
Bessemers’ flat, two at a time, tossed his stick into a porcelain cane- 
rack in the hall, wrenched off his overcoat with a single movement, 
and precipitated himself, panting, into the dining-room, tugging 
at his gloves. 

He was twenty-eight years old — nearly ten years older than 


14 


Bux 

Travis; tall and somewhat lean; his face smooth-shaven and pink 
all over, as if he had just given it a violent rubbing with a crash 
towel. Unlike most writing folk, he dressed himself according to 
prevailing custom. But Condy overdid the matter. His scarfs and 
cravats were too bright, his colored shirt-bosoms were too broadly 
barred, his waistcoats too extreme. Even Travis, as she rose to 
his abrupt entrance, told herself that of a Sunday evening a pink 
shirt and scarlet tie were a combination hardly to be forgiven. 

Condy shook her hand in both of his, then rushed over to Mr. 
Bessemer, exclaiming between breaths: “Don’t get up, sir — don’t 
think of it! Heavens! I’m disgustingly late. You’re all through. 
My watch — this beastly watch of mine — I can’t imagine how I came 
to be so late. You did quite right not to wait.” 

Then as his morbidly keen observation caught a certain look 
of blankness on Travis’ face, and his rapid glance noted no vacant 
chair at table, he gave a quick gasp of dismay. 

“Heavens and earth! didn’t you expect me?” he cried. “I 
thought you said — I thought — I must have forgotten — I must have 
got it mixed up somehow. What a hideous mistake, what a blunder ! 
What a fool I am!” 

He dropped into a chair against the wall and mopped his fore- 
head with a blue-bordered handkerchief. 

“Well, what difference does it make, Condy?” said Travis 
quietly. “I’ll put another place for you.” 

“No, no!” he vociferated, jumping up. “I won’t hear of it, I 
won’t permit it ! You’ll think I did it on purpose !” 

Travis ignored his interference, and made a place for him op- 
posite the children, and had Maggie make some more chocolate. 

Condy meanwhile covered himself with opprobrium. 

“And all this trouble — I always make trouble everywhere I go. 
Always a round man in a square hole, or a square man in a round 
hole.” 

He got up and sat down again, crossed and recrossed his legs, 
picked up little ornaments from the mantelpiece, and replaced them 
without consciousness of what they were, and finally broke the crys- 
tal of his watch as he was resetting it by the cuckoo clock. 

“Hello!” he exclaimed suddenly; “where did you get that clock? 
Where did you get that clock? That’s new to me. Where did that 
come from?” 

“That cuckoo clock?” inquired Travis, with a stare. “Condy 
Rivers, you’ve been here and in this room at least twice a week 


Blix 


*5 

for the last year and a half, and that clock, and no other, has 
always hung there.” 

But already Condy had forgotten or lost interest in the clock. 

“Is that so? is that so?” he murmured absent-mindedly, seating 
himself at the table. 

Mr. Bessemer was murmuring: “That clock’s a little fast. I 
can not make that clock keep time. Victorine has lost the key. I 
have to wind it with a monkey-wrench. Now 111 try some more 
beans. Maggie has put in too much pepper. Ill have to have a 
new key made to-morrow.” 

“Hey? Yes — yes. Is that so?” answered Condy Rivers, bewil- 
dered, wishing to be polite, yet unable to follow the old man’s 
mutterings. 

“He’s not talking to you,” remarked Travis, without lowering 
her voice. “You know how Papum goes on. He won’t hear a 
word you say. Well, I read your story in this morning’s ‘Times.’ ” 

A few moments later, while Travers and Condy were still dis- 
cussing this story, Mr. Bessemer rose. “Well, Mr. Rivers,” he 
announced, “I guess I’ll say good-night. Come, Snooky.” 

“Yes, take her with you, Papum,” said Travis. “She’ll go to 
sleep on the lounge here if you don’t. Howard, have you got your 
lessons for to-morrow?” 

It appeared that he had not. Snooky whined to stay up a little 
longer, but at last consented to go with her father. They all bade 
Condy good-night and took themselves away, Howard lingering a 
moment in the door in the hope of the nickel he dared not ask for. 
Maggie reappeared to clear away the table. 

“Let’s go in the parlor,” suggested Travis, rising. “Don’t you 
want to?” 

The parlor was the front room overlooking the street, and was 
reached by the long hall that ran the whole length of the flat, pass- 
ing by the door of each one of its eight rooms in turn. 

Travis preceded Condy, and turned up one of the burners in a 
colored globe of the little brass chandelier. 

The parlor was a small affair, peopled by a family of chairs 
and sofas robed in white drugget. A gold-and-white effect had 
been striven for throughout the room. The walls had been tinted 
instead of papered, and bunches of hand-painted pink flowers tied 
up with blue ribbons straggled from one corner of the ceiling. 
Across one angle of the room straddled a brass easel upholding a 
crayon portrait of Travis at the age of nine, “enlarged from a 


1 6 


Blix 


photograph.” A yellow drape ornamented one corner of the frame, 
while another drape of blue depended from one end of the mantel- 
piece. 

The piano, upon which nobody ever played, balanced the easel 
in an opposite comer. Over the mantelpiece hung in a gilded frame 
a steel engraving of Priscilla and John Alden; and on the mantel 
itself two bisque figures of an Italian fisher boy and girl kept com- 
pany with the clock, a huge timepiece, set in a red plush palette, 
that never was known to go. But at the right of the fireplace, and 
balancing the tuft of pampa-grass to the left, was an inverted sec- 
tion of a sewer-pipe painted blue and decorated with daisies. Into 
it was thrust a sheaf of cat-tails, gilded, and tied with a pink ribbon. 

Travis dropped upon the shrouded sofa, and Condy set himself 
carefully down on one of the frail chairs with its spindling golden 
legs, and they began to talk. 

Condy had taken her to the theatre the Monday night of that 
week, as had been his custom ever since he had known her well, 
and there was something left for them to say on that subject. But 
in ten minutes they had exhausted it. An engagement of a girl 
known to both of them had just been announced. Condy brought 
that up, and kept conversation going for another twenty minutes, 
and then filled in what threatened to be a gap by telling her stories 
of the society reporters, and how they got inside news by listen- 
ing to telephone party wires for days at a time. Travis’ condemna- 
tion of this occupied another five or ten minutes ; and so what with 
this and with that they reached nine o’clock. Then decidedly the 
evening began to drag. It was too early to go. Condy could find 
no good excuse for takng himself away, and, though Travis was 
good-natured enough, and met him more than half-way, their talk 
lapsed, and lapsed, and lapsed. The breaks became more numerous 
and lasted longer. Condy began to wonder if he was boring her. 
No sooner had the suspicion entered his head than it hardened into 
a certainty, and at once what little fluency and freshness he yet 
retained forsook him on the spot. What made matters worse was 
his recollection of other evenings that of late he had failed in pre- 
cisely the same manner. Even while he struggled to save the situa- 
tion Condy was wondering if they two were talked out — if they 
had lost charm for each other. Did he not know Travis through 
and through by now — her opinions, her ideas, her convictions ? Was 
there any more freshness in her for him? Was their little flirtation 
of the last eighteen months, charming as it had been, about to end ? 


Blix 


*7 

Had they played out the play, had they come to the end of each 
other’s resources? He had never considered the possibility of this 
before; but all at once as he looked at Travis— looked fairly into 
her little brown-black eyes — it was borne in upon him that she was 
thinking precisely the same thing. 

Condy Rivers had met Travis at a dance a year and a half be- 
fore this, and, because she was so very pretty, so unaffected, and 
so good-natured, had found means to see her three or four times a 
week ever since. They two “went out” not a little in San Francisco 
society, and had been in a measure identified with what was known 
as the Younger Set; though Travis was too young to come out, 
and Rivers too old to feel very much at home with girls of twenty 
and boys of eighteen. 

They had known each other in the conventional way (as conven- 
tionality goes in San Francisco) ; during the season Rivers took her 
to the theatres Monday nights, and called regularly Wednesdays and 
Sundays. Then they met at dances, and managed to be invited to 
the same houses for teas and dinners. They had flirted rather des- 
perately, and at times Condy even told himself that he loved this 
girl so much younger than he — this girl with the smiling eyes and 
robust figure and yellow hair, who was so frank, so straightforward, 
and so wonderfully pretty. 

But evidently they had come to the last move in the game, and 
as Condy reflected that after all he had never known the real Travis, 
that the girl whom he told himself he knew through and through 
was only the Travis of dinner parties and afternoon functions, he 
was suddenly surprised to experience a sudden qualm of deep and 
genuine regret. He had never been near to her, after all. They 
were as far apart as when they had first met. And yet he knew 
enough of her to know that she was “worth while.” He had had 
experience — all the experience he wanted— with other older women 
and girls of society. They were sophisticated, they were all a little 
tired, they had run the gamut of amusements — in a word, they were 
jaded. But Travis, this girl of nineteen, who was not yet even a 
debutante , had been fresh and unspoiled, had been new and strong 
and young. 

“Of course, you may call it what you like. He was nothing 
more nor less than intoxicated— yes, drunk.” 

“Hah! who — what — wh — what are you talking about?” gasped 
Condy sitting bolt upright. 

“Jack Carter,” answered Travis. “No,” she added, shaking her 


1 8 


Blix 


head at him helplessly, “he hasn’t been listening to a word. I’m 
talking about Jack Carter and the ‘Saturday Evening’ last night.” 

“No, no, I haven’t heard. Forgive me; I was thinking — think- 
ing of something else. Who was drunk?” 

Travis paused a moment, settling her side-combs in her hair; 
then : 

“If you will try to listen, I’ll tell it all over again, because it’s 
serious with me, and I’m going to take a very decided stand about 
it. You know,” she went on — “you know what the ‘Saturday Even- 
ing’ is. Plenty of the girls who are not ‘out’ belong, and a good 
many of last year’s debutantes come, as well as the older -girls of 
three or four seasons’ standing. You could call it representative, 
couldn’t you? Well, they always serve punch; and you know your- 
self that you have seen men there who have taken more than they 
should.” 

“Yes, yes,” admitted Condy. “I know Carter and the two Catlin 
boys always do.” 

“It gets pretty bad sometimes, doesn’t it?” she said. 

“It does, it does — and it’s shameful. But most of the girls — 
most of them — don’t seem to mind.” 

Miss Bessemer stiffened a bit. “There are one or two girls that 
do,” she said quietly. “Frank Catlin had the decency to go home 
last night,” she continued; “and his brother wasn’t any worse than 
usual. But Jack Carter must have been drinking before he came. 
He was very bad indeed — as bad,” she said between her teeth, “as 
he could be and yet walk straight. As you say, most of the girls 
don’t mind. They say, ‘It’s only Johnnie Carter; what do you ex- 
pect?’ But one of the girls — you know her, Laurie Flagg — cut a 
dance with him last night and told him exactly why. Of course, 
Carter was furious. He was sober enough to think he had been 
insulted; and what do you suppose he did?” 

“What ? what ?” exclaimed Condy, breathless, leaning toward her. 

“Went about the halls and dressing-rooms circulating some dirty 
little lie about Laurie. Actually trying to — to” — Travis hesitated— 
“to make a scandal about her.” 

Condy bounded in his seat. “Beast, cad, swine !” he exclaimed. 

“I didn’t think,” said Travis, “that Carter would so much as 
dare to ask me to dance with him — ” 

“Did he? did — did — ” 

. “Wait,” she interrupted. “So I wasn’t at all prepared for what 
happened. During the german, before I knew it, there he was in 


Blix 


19 

front of me. It was a break, and he wanted it. I hadn’t time to 
think. The only idea I had was that if I refused him he might tell 
some dirty little lie about me. I was all confused — mixed up. I 
felt just as though it were a snake that I had to humor to get rid 
of. I gave him the break.” 

Condy sat speechless. Suddenly he arose. 

“Well, now, let’s see,” he began, speaking rapidly, his hands 
twisting and untwisting till the knuckles cracked. “Now, let’s see. 
You leave it to me. I know Carter. He’s going to be at a stag 
dinner where I am invited to-morrow night, and I — I — ” 

“No, you won’t, Condy,” said Travis placidly. “You’ll pay no 
attention to it, and I’ll tell you why. Suppose you should make a 
scene with Mr. Carter — I don’t know how men settle these things. 
Well, it would be told in all the clubs and in all the newspaper 
offices that two men had quarreled over a girl ; and my name is 
mentioned, discussed, and handed around from one crowd of men to 
another, from one club to another; and then, of course, the papers 
take it up. By that time Mr. Carter will have told his side of the story 
and invented another dirty little lie, and I’m the one who suffers 
the most in the end. And remember, Condy, that I haven’t any 
mother in such an affair, not even an older sister. No, we’ll just 
let the matter drop. It would be more dignified, anyhow. Only 
I have made up my mind what I am going to do.” 

“What’s that?” 

“I’m not coming out. If that’s the sort of thing one has to put 
up with in society” — Travis drew a little line on the sofa at her side 
with her finger-tip — “I am going to — stop — right — there. It’s not” 
— Miss Bessemer stiffened again — “that I’m afraid of Jack Carter 
and his dirty stories; I simply don’t want to know the kind of 
people who have made Jack Carter possible. The other girls don’t 
mind it, nor many men besides you, Condy; and I’m not going 
to be associated with people who take it as a joke for a man to 
come to a function drunk. And as for having a good time, I’ll find 
my amusements somewhere else. I’ll ride a wheel, take long walks, 
study something. But as for leading the life of a society girl — no ! 
And whether I have a good time or not, I’ll keep my own self- 
respect. At least I’ll never have to dance with a drunken man. I 
won’t have to humiliate myself like that a second time.” 

“But I presume you will still continue to go out somewhere,” 
protested Condy Rivers. 

She shook her head. 


20 


Blix 


“I have thought it all over, and I’ve talked about it with Papum. 
There’s no half way about it. The only way to stop is to stop 
short. Just this afternoon I’ve regretted three functions for next 
week, and I shall resign from the ‘Saturday Evening.’ Oh, it’s 
not the Jack Carter affair alone!” she exclaimed; “the whole thing 
tires me. Mind, Condy,” she exclaimed, “I’m not going to break 
with it because I have any ‘purpose in life,’ or that sort of thing. I 
want to have a good time, and I’m going to see if I can’t have it 
in my own way. If the kind of thing that makes Jack Carter pos- 
sible is conventionality, then I’m done with conventionality for good. 
I am going to try, from this time on, to be just as true to myself as 
I can be. I am going to be sincere, and not pretend to like people 
and things that I don’t like; and I’m going to do the things that I 
like to do — just so long as they are the things a good girl can do. 
See, Condy?” 

“You’re fine,” murmured Condy breathless. “You’re fine as gold, 
Travis, and I — I love you all the better for it.” 

“Ah, now!” exclaimed Travis, with a brusque movement, “there’s 
another thing we must talk about. No more foolishness between 
us. We’ve had a jolly little flirtation, I know, and it’s been good 
fun while it lasted. I know you like me, and you know that I like 
you; but as for loving each other, you know we don’t. Yes, you 
say that you love me and that I’m the only girl. That’s part of 
the game. I can play it”— her little eyes began to dance — “quite as 
well as you. But it’s playing with something that’s quite too serious 
to be played with— after all, isn’t it, now? It’s insincere, and, as 
I tell you, from now on I’m going to be as true and as sincere and 
as honest as I can.” 

“But I tell you that I do love you,” protested Condy, trying to 
make the words ring true. 

Travis looked about the room an instant as if in deliberation; 
then abruptly: “Ah! wh&t am I going to do with such a boy as 
you are, after all— a great big, overgrown boy? Condy Rivers, 
look at me straight in the eye. Tell me, do you ' honestly 
love me? You know what I mean when I say ‘love.’ Do 
you love me?” 

“No, I don’t!” he exclaimed blankly, as though he had just 
discovered the fact. 

“There!” declared Travis— “and I don’t love you.” They both 
began to laugh. 

“Now,” added Travis, “we don’t need to have the burden and 


Blix 21 

trouble of keeping up the pretences any more. We understand each 
other, don’t we?” 

“This is queer enough,” said Condy drolly. 

“But isn’t it an improvement?” 

Condy scoured his head. 

“Tell me the truth,” she insisted; “you be sincere.” 

“I do believe it is. Why — why — Travis by Jingo! Travis, I 
think I’m going to like you better than ever now.” 

“Never mind. Is it an agreement?” 

“What is?” 

“That we don’t pretend to love each other any more?” 

“All right — yes — you’re right; because the moment I began to 
love you I should like you so much less.” 

She put out her hand. “That’s an agreement, then.” 

Condy took her hand in his. “Yes, it’s an agreement.” But 
when, as had been his custom, he made as though to kiss her hand, 
Travis drew it quickly away. 

“No! no!” she said firmly, smiling for all that — “no more 
foolishness.” 

“But — but,” he protested, “it’s not so radical as that, is it? 
You’re not going to overturn such time-worn, time-honored customs 
as that? Why, this is a regular rebellion.” 

“No, sire,” quoted Travis, trying not to laugh, “it is a revolution.” 


Ill 

Although Monday was practically a holiday for the Sunday- 
supplement staff of “The Times,” Condy Rivers made a point to 
get down to the office betimes the next morning. There were 
reasons why a certain article descriptive of a great whaleback 
steamer taking on grain for famine-stricken India should be written 
that day, and Rivers wanted his afternoon free in order to go to 
Laurie Flagg’s coming-out tea. 

But as he came into his room at “The Times” office, which he 
shared with the exchange and sporting editors, and settled himself 
at his desk, he suddenly remembered that, under the new order of 
things, he need not expect to see Travis at the Flaggs’. 

“Well,” he muttered, “maybe it doesn’t make so much difference, 
after all. She was a corking fine girl, but — might as well admit 


22 


Blix 


it — the play is played out. Of course, I don’t love her— any more 
than she loves me. I’ll see less and less of her now. It’s inevitable, 
and after a while we’ll hardly even meet. In a way, it’s a pity ; but, 
of course, one has to be sensible about these things. 

Well, this whaleback now.” 

He rang up the Chamber of Commerce, and found out that the 
“City of Everett,” which was the whaleback’s name, was at the 
Mission Street wharf. This made it possible for him to write the 
article in two ways. He either could fake his copy from a clipping- 
on the subject which the exchange editor had laid on his desk, or 
he could go down in person to the wharf, interview the captain, 
and inspect the craft for himself. The former was the short and easy 
method. The latter was more troublesome, but would result in a 
far more interesting article. 

Condy debated the subject a few minutes, then decided to go 
down to the wharf. San Francisco’s water-front was always in- 
teresting, and he might get hold of a photograph of the whaleback. 
All at once the “idea” of the article struck him, the certain under- 
lying notion that would give importance and weight to the mere 
details and descriptions. Condy’s enthusiasm flared up in an instant. 

“By Jove!” he exclaimed; “by Jove!” 

He clapped on his hat wrong side foremost, crammed a sheaf 
of copy-paper into his pocket, and was on the street again in an- 
other moment. Then it occurred to him that he had forgotten to 
call at his club that morning for his mail, as was his custom, on the 
way to the office. He looked at his watch. It was early yet, and 
his club was but two blocks’ distance. He decided that he would 
get his letters at the club, and read them on the way down to the 
wharf. 

For Condy had joined a certain San Francisco club of artists, 
journalists, musicians, and professional men that is one of the in- 
stitutions of the city, and, in fact, famous throughout the United 
States. He was one of the younger members, but was popular and 
well liked, and on more than one occasion had materially contributed 
to the fun of the club’s “low jinks.” 

In his box this morning he found one letter that he told himself 
he must read upon the instant. It bore upon the envelope the name 
of a New York publishing house to whom Condy had sent a col- 
lection of his short stories about a month before. He took the 
letter into the “round window” of the club, overlooking the street, 
and tore it open excitedly. The fact that he had received a letter 


Blix 


23 

from the firm without the return of his manuscript seemed a good 
omen. This was what he read : 

Conde Rivers , Esq. , Bohemian Club , San Francisco , Oz/. 

Dear Sir: We return to you by this mail the manuscript of your stories, 
which we do not consider as available for publication at the present mo- 
ment. We would say, however, that we find in several of them indications 
of a quite unusual order of merit. The best-selling book just now is the 
short novel — say thirty thousand words — of action and adventure. Judging 
from the stories of your collection, we suspect that your talent lies in this 
direction, and we would suggest that you write such a novel and submit the 
same to us. Very respectfully, 

The Centennial Co., 

New York. 

Condy shoved the letter into his pocket and collapsed limply 
into his chair. 

“What’s the good of trying to do anything anyhow!” he mut- 
tered, looking gloomily down into the street. “My level is just the 
hack-work of a local Sunday supplement, and I am a fool to think 
of anything else.” 

His enthusiasm in the matter of the “City of Everett” was cold 
and dead in a moment. He could see no possibilities in the sub- 
ject whatever. His “idea” of a few minutes previous seemed 
ridiculous and overwrought. He would go back to the office and 
grind out his copy from the exchange editor’s clipping. 

Just then his eye was caught by a familiar figure in trim, 
well-fitting black halted on the opposite corner waiting for the 
passage of a cable car. It was Travis Bessemer. No one but she 
could carry off such rigorous simplicity in the matter of dress so 
well : black skirt, black Russian blouse, tiny black bonnet and black 
veil, white kids with black stitching. Simplicity itself. Yet the 
style of her, as Condy Rivers told himself, flew up and hit you in 
the face ; and her figure — was there anything more perfect ? and the 
soft pretty effect of her yellow hair seen through the veil — could 
anything be more fetching? and her smart carriage and the fling of 
her fine broad shoulders, and — no, it was no use; Condy had to 
run down to speak to her. 

“Come, come!” she said as he pretended to jostle against her 
on the curbstone without noticing her; “you had best go to work. 
Loafing at ten o’clock on the street corners — the idea!” 

“It is not — it can not be — and yet it is — it is she,” he burlesqued ; 


24 


Blix 


“and after all these years!” Then in his natural voice: “Hello, 
T. B 

“Hello, C. R ” 

“Where are you going?* 

“Home. I’ve just run down for half an hour to have the head 
of my banjo tightened.” 

“If I put you on the car, will you expect me to pay your car-fare?” 

“Condy Rivers, I’ve long since got over the idea of ever expect- 
ing you to have any change concealed about your person.” 

“Huh ! no, it all goes for theatre tickets, and flowers, and boxes 
of candy for a certain girl I know. But”— and he glared at her 
significantly — “no more foolishness.” 

" She laughed. “What are you ‘on’ this morning, Condy?” 

Condy told her as they started to walk toward Kearney Street. 

“But why don't you go to the dock and see the vessel, if you 
can make a better article that way?” 

“Oh, what’s the good ! The Centennial people have turned down 
my stories.” 

She commiserated him for this ; then suddenly exclaimed : 

“No, you must go down to the dock! You ought to, Condy. 
Oh, I tell you, let me go down with you!” 

In an instant Condy leaped t.o the notion. “Splendid ! splendid ! 
n® reason why you shouldn’t!” he exclaimed. And within fifteen 
minutes the two were treading the wharves and quays of the city’s 
water-front. 

Ships innumerable nuzzled at the endless line of docks, mast 
overspiring mast, and bowsprit overlapping bowsprit, till the eye 
was bewildered, as if by the confusion of branches in a leafless 
forest. In the distance the mass of rigging resolved itself into a 
solid gray blur against the sky. The great hulks, green and black 
and slate gray, laid themselves along the docks, straining leisurely at 
their mammoth chains, their flanks opened, their cargoes, as it 
were their entrails, spewed out in a wild disarray of crate and bale 
and box. Sailors and stevedores swarmed them like vermin. Trucks 
rolled along the wharves like peals of ordnance, the horse-hoofs beat- 
ing the boards like heavy drum-taps. Chains clanked, a ship’s dog 
barked incessantly from a companionway, ropes creaked in com- 
plaining pulleys, blocks rattled, hoisting-engines coughed and 
strangled, while all the air was redolent of oafkum, of pitch, of paint, 
of spices, of ripe fruit, of clean cool lumber, of coffee, of tar, of bilge, 
and the brisk, nimble odor of the sea. 


Blix 


2 5 

Travis was delighted, her little brown eyes snapping, her cheeks 
flushing, as she drank in the scene. 

“To think,” she cried, “where all these ships have come from! 
Look at their names; aren’t they perfect? Just the names, see: 
the ‘Mary Baker/ Hull; and the ‘Anandale,’ Liverpool; and the 
‘Two Sisters/ Calcutta ; and see that one they’re calking, the ‘Monte- 
video/ Callao ; and there, look ! look ! the very one you’re looking 
for, the ‘City of Everett,’ San Francisco.” 

The whaleback, an immense tube of steel plates, lay at her wharf, 
sucking in entire harvests of wheat from the San Joaquin valley — 
harvests that were to feed strangely clad skeletons on the southern 
slopes of the Himalaya foot-hills. Travis and Condy edged their 
way among piles of wheat-bags, dodging drays and rumbling trucks, 
and finally brought up at the after gangplank, where a sailor halted 
them. Condy exhibited his reporter’s badge. 

“I represent ‘The Times,’ ” he said, with profound solemnity, 
“and I want to see the officer in charge.” 

The sailor fell back upon the instant. 

“Power of the press,” whispered Condy to Travis as the two 
gained the deck. 

A second sailor directed them to the mate, whom they found 
in the chart-room, engaged, singularly enough, in trimming the 
leaves of a scraggly geranium. 

Condy explained his mission with flattering allusions to the 
whaleback and the novelty of the construction. The mate — an old 
man with a patriarchal beard — softened at once, asked them into 
his own cabin aft, and even brought out a camp-stool for Travis, 
brushing it with his sleeve before setting it down. 

While Condy was interviewing the old fellow, Travis was ex- 
amining, with the interest of a child, the details of the cabin: the 
rack-like bunk, the washstand, ingeniously constructed so as to shut 
into the bulkhead when not in use, the alarm-clock screwed to the 
wall, and the array of photographs thrust into the mirror between 
frame and glass. One, an old daguerreotype, particularly caught 
her fancy. It was the portrait of a very beautiful girl, wearing 
the old-fashioned side curls and high comb of a half-century 
previous. The old mate noticed the attention she paid to it, and, 
as soon as he had done giving information to Condy, turned 
and nodded to Travis, and said quietly: “She was pretty, wasn’t 
she?” 

“Oh, very!” answered Travis, without looking away. 

B— IV— Norris 


26 


Blix 


There was a silence. Then the mate, his eyes wide and thought- 
ful, said with a long breath : 

“And she was just about your age, miss, when I saw her; and 
you favor her, too/’ 

Condy and Travis held their breaths in attention. There in the 
cabin of that curious nondescript whaleback they had come suddenly 
to the edge of a romance — a romance that had been lived through 
before they were born. Then Travis said in a low voice, and sweetly : 
“She died?” 

“Before I ever set eyes on her, miss. That is, maybe she died. 

I sometimes think — fact is, I really believe she’s alive . yet, and 
waiting for me.” He hesitated awkwardly. “I dunno,” he said, 
pulling his beard. “I don’t usually tell that story to strange folk; 
but you remind me so of her that I guess I will.” 

Condy sat down on the edge of the bunk, and the mate seated 
himself on the plush settle opposite the door, his elbows on his 
knees, his eyes fixed on a patch of bright sunlight upon the deck 
outside. 

“I began life,” he said, “as a deep-sea diver — began pretty 
young, too. I first put on the armor when I was twenty, nothing 
but a lad; but I could take the pressure up to seventy pounds 
even then. One of my very first dives was off Trincomalee, on the 
coast of Ceylon. A mail packet had gone down in a squall with all 
on board. Six of the bodies had come up and had been recovered, 
but the seventh hadn’t. It was the body of the daughter of the 
governor of the island, a beautiful young girl of nineteen, whom 
everybody loved. I was sent for to go down and bring the body 
up. Well, I went down. The packet lay in a hundred feet of water, 
and that’s a wonder deep dive. I had to go down twice. The first 
time I couldn’t find anything, though I went all through the berth- 
deck. I came up to the wrecking-float and reported that I had seen 
nothing. There were a lot of men there belonging to the wrecking 
gang, and some correspondents of London papers. But they would 
have it that she was below, and had me go down again. I did, and 
this time I found her.” 

The mate paused a moment. 

“I’ll have to tell you,” he went on, “that when a body don’t come 
to the surface it will stand or sit in a perfectly natural position until 
a current or movement of the water around touches it. When 
that happens — well, you’d say the body was alive; and old divers 
have a superstition — no, it ain't just a superstition, I believe it’s so 


Blix 


27 

—that drowned people really don’t die till they come to the surface, 
and the air touches them. We say that the drowned who don’t 
come up still have some sort of life of their own way down there 
in all that green water . . . some kind of life . . . surely 

. . . surely. When I went down the second time, I came across 

the door of what I thought at first was the linen-closet. But it 
turned out to be a little stateroom. I opened it. There was the 
girl. She was sitting on the sofa opposite the door, with a little 
hat on her head, and holding a satchel in her lap, just as if she was 
ready to go ashore. Her eyes were wide open, and she was looking 
right at me and smiling. It didn’t seem terrible or ghastly in the 
least. She seemed very sweet. When I opened the door it set the 
water in motion, and she got up and dropped the satchel, and came 
toward me smiling and holding out her arms. 

“I stepped back quick and shut the door, and sat down in one 
of the saloon chairs to fetch my breath, for it had given me a start. 
The next thing to do was to send her up. But I began to think. 
She seemed so pretty as she was. What was the use of bringing 
her up — up there on the wrecking float with that crowd of men — up 
where the air would get at her, and where they would put her in 
the ground along o’ the worms? If I left her there she'd always 
be sweet and pretty — always be nineteen; and I remembered what 
old divers said about drowned people living just so long as- they 
stayed below. You see, I was only a lad then, and things like that 
impress you when you’re young. Well, I signaled to be hauled up. 
They asked me on the float if I’d seen anything, and I said no. 
That was all there was to the affair. They never raised the ship, 
and in a little while it was all forgotten. 

“But I never forgot it, and I always remembered her, way down 
there in all that still green water, waiting there in that little state- 
room for me to come back and open the door. And I’ve growed 
to be an old man remembering her; but she’s always stayed just as 
she was the first day I saw her, when she came toward me smiling 
and holding out her arms. She’s always stayed young and fresh 
and pretty. I never saw her but that once. Only afterward I got 
her picture from a native woman of Trincomalee who was house- 
keeper at the Residency where the governor of the island lived. 
Somehow I never could care for other women after that, and I 
ain’t never married for that reason.” 

“No, no, of course not!” exclaimed Travis, in a low voice, as 
the old fellow paused. 


28 


Blix 


“Fine, fine; oh, fine as gold!” murmured Condy, under his 

breath. , 

“Well,” said the mate, getting up and rubbing his knee, that s 
the story. Now you know all about that picture. Will you have a 
glass of Madeira, miss?” 

He got out a bottle of wine bearing the genuine Funchal label 
and filled three tiny glasses. Travis pushed up her veil, and she 
and Condy rose. 

“This is to her ” said Travis gravely. 

“Thank you, miss,” answered the mate, and the three drank in 
silence. 

As Travis and Condy were going down the gangplank they met 
the captain of the whaleback coming up. 

“I saw you in there talking to old McPherson,” he explained. 
“Did you get what you wanted from him?” 

“More, more!” exclaimed Condy. 

“My hand in the fire, he told you that yarn about the girl who 
was drowned off Trincomalee. Of course, I knew it. The old 
boy’s wits are turned on that subject. He will have it that the body 
hasn’t decomposed in all this time. Good seaman enough, and a 
first-class navigator, but he’s soft in that one spot.” 


IV 

“Oh, but the story of it!” exclaimed Condy as he and Travis 
regained the wharf — “the story of it! Isn’t it a ripper. Isn’t it a 
corker ! His leaving her that way, and never caring for any other 
girl afterward.” 

“And so original,” she commented, quite as enthusiastic as he. 

“Original? — why, it’s new as paint! It’s — it’s — Travis, I’ll 
make a story out of this that will be copied in every paper between 
the two oceans.” 

They were so interested in the mate’s story that they forgot to 
take a car, and walked up Clay Street talking it over, suggesting, 
rearranging, and embellishing; and Condy was astonished and de- 
lighted to note that she “caught on” to the idea as quickly as he, 
and knew the telling points and what details to leave out. 

“And I’ll make a bang-up article out of the whaleback herself,” 
declared Condy. The “idea” of the article had returned to him, and 
all his enthusiasm with it. 


Blix 


29 

“And look here,” he said, showing her the letter from the Cen- 
tennial Company. “They turned down my book, but see what they 
say.” 

“Quite an unusual order of merit!” cried Travis. “Why, that’s 
fine! Why didn’t you show this to me before? — and asking you 
like this to write them a novel of adventure! What more can you 
want? Oh!” she exclaimed impatiently, “that’s so like you; you 
v/ould tell everybody about your reverses, and carry on about them 
yourself, but never say a word when you get a little boom. Have 
you an idea for a thirty-thousand-word novel? Wouldn’t that diver’s 
story do?” 

“No, there’s not enough in that for thirty thousand words. I 
haven’t any idea at all — never wrote a story of adventure — never 
wrote anything longer than six thousand words. But I’ll keep my 
eye open for something that will do. By the way — by Jove! Travis, 
where are we?” 

They looked briskly around them, and the bustling, breezy 
water-front faded from their recollections. They were in a world 
of narrow streets, of galleries and overhanging balconies. Craziest 
structures, riddled and honeycombed with stairways and passages, 
shut out the sky, though here and there rose a building of extraor- 
dinary richness and most elaborate ornamentation. Color was 
everywhere. A thousand little notes of green and yellow, of ver- 
milion and sky blue, assaulted the eye. Here it was a doorway, 
here a vivid glint of cloth or hanging, here a huge scarlet sign 
lettered with gold, and here a kaleidoscopic effect in the garments 
of a passer-by. Directly opposite, and two stories above their heads, 
a sort of huge “loggia,” one blaze of gilding and crude vermilions, 
opened in the gray cement of a crumbling fagade, like a sudden 
burst of flame. Gigantic pot-bellied lanterns of red and gold swung 
from its ceiling, while along its railing stood a row of pots — brass, 
ruddy bronze, and blue porcelain — from which were growing red, 
saffron, purple, pink, and golden tulips without number. The air 
was vibrant with unfamiliar noises. From one of the balconies near 
at hand, though unseen, a gong, a pipe, and some kind of stringed 
instrument wailed and thundered in unison. There was a vast 
shuffling of padded soles and a continuous interchange of singsong 
monosvllables, high-pitched and staccato, while from every hand 
rose the strange aromas of the East — sandalwood, punk, incense, 
oil, and the smell of mysterious cookery. 

“Chinatown!” exclaimed Travis. “I hadn’t the faintest idea we 


Blix 


30 

had come up so far. Condy Rivers, do you know what time it is?” 
She pointed a white kid finger through the doorway of a drug-store, 
where, amid lacquer boxes and bronze urns of herbs and dried seeds, 
a round Seth Thomas marked half-past two. 

“And your lunch?” cried Condy. “Great heavens! I never 
thought.” 

“It’s too late to get any at home. Never mind; I’ll go some- 
where and have a cup of tea.” 

“Why not get a package of Chinese tea, now that you’re down 
here, and take it home with you?” 

“Or drink it here.” 

“Where?” 

“In one of the restaurants. There wouldn’t be a soul there at 
this hour. I know they serve tea any time. Condy, let’s try it. 
Wouldn’t it be fun?” 

Condy smote his thigh. “Fun !” he vociferated ; “fun ! It is — by 
Jove — it would be heavenly! Wait a moment. I’ll tell you what 
we will do. Tea won’t be enough. We’ll go down to Kearney 
Street, or to the market, and get some crackers to go with it.” 

They hurried back to the California market, a few blocks dis- 
tant, and bought some crackers and a wedge of new cheese. On 
the way back to Chinatown Travis stopped at a music store on 
Kearney Street to get her banjo, which she had left to have its 
head tightened; and thus burdened they regained the “town,” Condy 
grieving audibly at having to carry “brown-paper bundles through 
the street.” 

“First catch your restaurant,” said Travis as they turned into 
Dupont Street with its thronging coolies and swarming, gayly clad 
children. But they had not far to seek. 

“Here you are!” suddenly exclaimed Condy, halting in front of 
a wholesale tea-house bearing a sign in Chinese and English. 
“Come on, Travis!” 

They ascended two flights of a broad, brass-bound staircase 
leading up from the ground floor, and gained the restaurant on the 
top story of the building. As Travis had foretold, it was deserted. 
She clasped her gloved hands gayly, crying: “Isn’t it delightful! 
We’ve the whole place to ourselves.” 

The restaurant ran the whole depth of the building, and was 
finished ofif at either extremity with a gilded balcony, one overlook- 
ing Dupont Street and the other the old Plaza. Enormous screens 
of gilded ebony, intricately carved and set with colored glass panes, 


Blix 


3i 

divided the room into three, and one of these divisions, in the rear 
part, from which they could step out upon the balcony that com- 
manded the view of the Plaza, they elected as their own. 

It was charming. At their backs they had the huge, fantastic 
screen, brave and fine with its coat of gold. In front, through the 
glass-paned valves of a pair of folding doors, they could see the 
roofs of the houses beyond the Plaza, and beyond these the blue of 
the bay with its anchored ships, and even beyond this the faint pur- 
ple of the Oakland shore. On either side of these doors, in deep 
alcoves, were divans with mattings and head-rests for opium 
smokers. The walls were painted blue and hung with vertical Can- 
tonese legends in red and silver, while all around the sides of the 
room small ebony tables alternated with ebony stools, each inlaid 
with a slab of mottled marble. A chandelier, all a-glitter with tinsel, 
swung from the centre of the ceiling over a huge round table of 
mahogany. 

And not a soul was there to disturb them. Below them, out 
there around the old Plaza, the city drummed through its work 
with a lazy, soothing rumble. Nearer at hand, Chinatown sent up 
the vague murmur of the life of the Orient. In the direction of the 
Mexican quarter, the bell of the cathedral knolled at intervals. The 
sky was without a cloud and the afternoon was warm. 

Condy was inarticulate with the joy of what he called their “dis- 
covery/’ He got up and sat down. He went out into the other 
room and came back again. He dragged up a couple of the marble- 
seated stools to the table. He took off his hat, lighted a cigarette, 
let it go out, lighted it again, and burned his fingers. He opened 
and closed the folding-doors, pushed the table into a better light, and 
finally brought Travis out upon the balcony to show her the “points 
of historical interest” in and around the Plaza. 

“There’s the Stevenson memorial ship in the centre, see; and 
right there, where the flagstaff is, General Baker made the funeral 
oration over the body of Terry. Broderick killed him in a duel — or 
was it Terry killed Broderick? I forget which. Anyhow, right 
opposite, where that pawnshop is, is where the Overland stages 
used to start in ’49. And every other building that fronts on the 
Plaza, even this one we’re in now, used to be a gambling-house in 
bonanza times; and, see, over yonder is the Morgue and the City 
Prison.” 

They turned back into the room, and a great, fat Chinaman 
brought them tea on Condy’s order. But besides tea, he brought 


32 Blix 

dried almonds, pickled watermelon rinds, candied quince, and 
“China nuts.” 

Tratis cut the cheese into cubes with Condy’s penknife, and ar- 
ranged the cubes in geometric figures upon the crackers. 

“But, Condy,” she complained, “why in the world did you get so 
many crackers? There’s hundreds of them here — enough to feed 
a regiment. Why didn’t you ask me?” 

“Huh! what? what? I don’t know. What’s the matter with 
the crackers? You were dickering with the cheese, and the man 
said, ‘How many crackers?’ I didn’t know. I said, ‘Oh, give me a 
quarter’s worth !’ ” 

“And we couldn’t possibly have eaten ten cents’ worth! Oh, 
Condy, you are — you are — But never mind, here’s your tea. I 
wonder if this green, pasty stuff is good.” 

They found that it was, but so sweet that it made their tea taste 
bitter. The watermelon rinds were flat to their Western palates, 
but the dried almonds were a great success. Then Condy promptly 
got the hiccoughs from drinking his tea too fast, and fretted up 
and down the room like a chicken with the pip till Travis grew 
faint and weak with laughter. 

“Oh, well,” he exclaimed aggrievedly — “laugh, that’s right ! I 
don’t laugh. It isn’t such fun when you’ve got ’em yoursel’ — hulp.” 

“But sit down, for goodness’ sake! You make me so nervous. 
You can’t walk them off. Sit down and hold your breath while 
you count nine. Condy, I’m going to take off my gloves and veil. 
What do you think?” 

“Sure, of course; and I’ll have a cigarette. Do you mind if I 
smoke ?” 

“Well, what’s that in your hand now?” 

“By Jove, I have been smoking! I — I beg your pardon. I’m a 
regular stable boy. I’ll throw it away.” 

Travis caught his wrist. “What nonsense! I would have told 
you before if I’d minded.” 

“But it’s gone out!” he exclaimed. “I’ll have another.” 

As he reached into his pocket for his case, his hand en- 
countered a paper-covered volume, and he drew it out in some 
perplexity. 

“Now, how in the wide world did that book come in my pocket?” 
he muttered, frowning. “What have I been carrying it around for? 
I’ve forgotten. I declare I have.” 

“What book is it?” 


Blix 


33 


“Hey? book? . . . h’m,” he murmured, staring. 

Travis pounded on the table. “Wake up, Condy, I’m talking to 
you/’ she called. 

“It’s ‘Life’s Handicap,’ ” he answered, with a start ; “but why 
and but why have I — ” 

“What’s it about? I never heard of it,” she declared. 

“You never heard of ‘Life’s Handicap’?” he shouted; “you 
never heard — you never — you mean to say you never heard — but 
here, this won’t do. Sit right still, and I’ll read you one of these 
yarns before you’re another minute older. Any one of them — open 
the book at random. Here we are — ‘The Strange Ride of Morrow- 
bie Jukes’ ; and it’s a stem- winder, too.” 

And then for the first time in her life, there in that airy, golden 
Chinese restaurant, in the city from which he hasted to flee, Travis 
Bessemer fell under the charm of the little spectacled colonial, to 
whose song we all must listen and to whose pipe we all must 
dance. 

There was one “point” in the story of Jukes’ strange ride that 
Condy prided himself upon having discovered. So far as he knew, 
all critics had overlooked it. It is where Jukes is describing the 
man-trap of the City of the Dead who are alive, and mentions that 
the slope of the inclosing sandhills was “about forty-five degrees.” 
Jukes was a civil engineer, and Condy held that it was a capital bit 
of realism on the part of the author to have him speak of the pitch 
of the hills in just such technical terms. At first he thought he 
would call Travis’ attention to this bit of cleverness; but as he read 
he abruptly changed his mind. He would see if she would find it 
out for herself. It would be a test of her quickness, he told him- 
self; almost an unfair test, because the point was extremely subtle 
and could easily be ignored by the most experienced of fiction 
readers. He read steadily on, working himself into a positive ex- 
citement as he approached the passage. He came to it and read it 
through without any emphasis, almost slurring over it in his eager- 
ness to be perfectly fair. But as he began to read the next para- 
graph, Travis, her little eyes sparkling with interest and attention, 
exclaimed : 

“Just as an engineer would describe it. Isn’t that good!” 

“Glory hallelujah !” cried Condy, slamming down the book joy- 
fully. “Travis, you are one in a thousand!” 

“What — what is it?’ she inquired blankly. 

“Never mind, never mind; you’re a wonder, that’s all” — and he 


Blix 


34 

finished the tale without further explanation. Then, while he 
smoked another cigarette and she drank another cup of tea, he read 
to her “The Return of Imri” and the “Incarnation of Krishna Mul- 
vaney.” He found her an easy and enrapt convert to the little 
Englishman’s creed, and for himself tasted the intense delight of 
revealing to another an appreciation of a literature hitherto ig- 
nored. 

“Isn’t he strong!” cried Travis. “Just a little better than Marie 
Corelli and the Duchess !” 

“And to think of having all those stories to read ! You haven’t 
read any of them yet?” 

“Not a one. I’ve been reading only the novels we take up in 
the Wednesday class.” 

“Lord!” muttered Condy. 

Condy’s spirits had been steadily rising since the incident aboard 
the whaleback. The exhilaration of the water-front, his delight over 
the story he was to make out of the old mate’s yarn, Chinatown, 
the charming unconventionality of their lunch in the Chinese res- 
taurant, the sparkling serenity of the afternoon, and the joy of 
discovering Travis’ appreciation of his adored and venerated author, 
had put him into a mood bordering close upon hilarity. 

“The next event upon our interesting programme,” he an- 
nounced, “will be a banjosephine obligato in A-sia minor, by that 
justly renowned impresario, Signor Conde Tin-pani Rivers, spe- 
cially engaged for this performance ; with a pleasing and pan-hel- 
lenic song-and-dance turn by Miss Travis Bessemer, the infant phe- 
nomenon, otherwise known as ‘Babby Bessie.’ ” 

“You’re not going to play that banjo here?” said Travis, as he 
stripped away the canvas covering. 

“Order in the gallery!” cried Condy, beginning to tune up. 
Then in a rapid, professional monotone: “Ladies-and-gentlemen- 
with - your - kind - permission - I - will - endeavor - to - give - you - 
an - imitation - of - a - Carolina - coon - song” — and without more 
ado, singing the words to a rattling, catchy accompaniment, swung 
off into — 

“F— or my gal’s a high-born leddy, 

She's brack, but not too shady.” 

He did not sing loud, and the clack and snarl of the banjo car- 
ried hardly further than the adjoining room ; but there was no one 
to hear, and, as he went along, even Travis began to hum the words, 


Blix 


35 

But at that, Condy stopped abruptly, laid the instrument across his 
knees with exaggerated solicitude, and said deliberately : 

“Travis, you are a good, sweet girl, and what you lack in beauty 
you make up in amiability, and I’ve no doubt you are kind to your 
aged father; but you — can — not — sing.” 

Travis was cross in a moment, all the more so because Condy 
had spoken the exact truth. It was quite impossible for her to carry 
a tune half a dozen bars without entangling herself in as many dif- 
ferent keys. What voice she had was not absolutely bad ; but as she 
persisted in singing in spite of Condy’s guying, he put back his head 
and began a mournful and lugubrious howling. 

“Ho!” she exclaimed, grabbing the banjo from his knees, “if I 
can’t sing, I can play better than some smart people.” 

“Yes, by note,” rallied Condy, as Travis executed a banjo “piece” 
of no little intricacy. “That’s just like a machine — like a hand- 
piano.” 

“Order in the gallery!” she retorted, without pausing in her 
playing. She finished with a great flourish and gazed at him in 
triumph, only to find him pretending a profound slumber. “O — o — 
o!” she remarked between her teeth, “I just hate you, Condy 
Rivers.” 

“There are others,” he returned airily. 

“Talk about slang.” 

“Now what will we do?” he cried. “Let’s do something. Sup- 
pose we break something — just for fun.” 

Then suddenly the gayety went out of his face, and he started up 
and clapped his hand to his head with a gasp of dismay. “Great 
Heavens !” he exclaimed. 

“Condy,” cried Travis in alarm, “what is it?” 

“The Tea !” he vociferated. “Laurie Flagg’s Tea. I ought to 
be there — right this minute.” 

Travis fetched a sigh of relief. “Is that all?” 

“All!” he retorted. “All! Why, it’s past four now — and I’d 
forgotten every last thing.” Then suddenlly falling calm again, and 
quietly resuming his seat : “I don’t see as it makes any difference. I 
won’t go, that’s all. Push those almonds here, will you, Miss Lady? 
— But we aren’t doing anything,” he exclaimed, with a brusque re- 
turn of exuberance. •Let’s do things. What’ll we do? Think of 
something. Is there anything we can break?” Then, without any 
transition, he vaulted upon the table and began to declaim, with 
tremendous gestures: 


36 


Blix 


\:- 

“There once was a beast called an Ounce, 

Who went with a spring and a bounce. 

His head was as flat 
As the head of a cat, 

This quadrupetantical Ounce, 

— tical Ounce, 

This quadrupetantical Ounce. 

“You’d think from his name he was small, 

But that was not like him at all. 

He weighed, I’ll be bound, 

Three or four hundred pound, 

And he looked most uncommonly tall, 

— monly tall, 

And he looked most uncommonly tall.” 

“Bravo! bravo !” cried Travis, pounding on the table. “Hear, 
hear — none, Brutus, none.” 

Condy sat down on the table and swung his legs. But during 
the next few moments, while they were eating the last of their 
cheese, his good spirits fell rapidly away from him. He heaved a 
sigh, and thrust both hands gloomily into his pockets. 

“Cheese, Condy?” asked Travis. 

He shook his head with a dark frown, muttering: “No cheese, 
no cheese.” 

“What's wrong, Condy — what’s the matter?” asked Travis, with 
concern. 

For some time he would not tell her, answering all her in- 
quiries by closing his eyes and putting his chin in the air, nodding 
his head in knowing fashion. 

“But what is it?” 

“You don’t respect me,” he muttered; and for a long time this 
was all that could be got from him. No, no, she did not respect 
him; no, she did not take him seriously. 

“But of course I do. Why don’t I? Condy Rivers, what’s got 
into you now?” 

“No, no ; I know it. I can tell. You don’t take me seriously. 
You don’t respect me.” 

“But why?” 

“Make a blooming buffoon of myself,” 4ie mumbled tragically. 

In great distress Travis labored to contradict him. Why, they 
had just been having a good time, that was all. Why, she had been 
just as silly as he. Condy caught at the word. 


Blix 37 

“Silly! There, I knew it. I told you. I’m silly. I’m a buf- 
foon. But haven’t we had a great afternoon?” he added, with a 
sudden grin. 

“I never remember,” announced Travis emphatically, “when I’ve 
had a better time than I’ve had to-day; and I know just why it’s 
been such a success.” 

“Why, then?” 

“Because we’ve had no foolishness. We’ve just been ourselves, 
and haven t pretended we were in love with each other when we are 
not. Condy, let’s do this lots.” 

“Do what?” 

“Go round to queer little, interesting little places. We’ve had 
a glorious time to-day, haven’t we?— and we haven’t been talked 
out once.” 

“As we were last night, for instance,” he hazarded. 

“I thought you felt it, the same as I did. It zvas a bit awful, 
wasn’t it?” 

“It was.” 

“From now on, let’s make a resolution: I know you’ve had a 
good time to-day. Haven’t you had a better time than if you had 
gone to the Tea?” 

“Well, rather. I don’t know when I’ve had a better, jollier 
afternoon.” 

“Well, now, we’re going to try to have lots more good times, but 
just as chums. We’ve tried the other, and it failed. Now be sin- 
cere; didn’t it fail?” 

“It worked out. It did work out.” 

“Now from this time on, no more foolishness. We’ll just be 
chums.” 

“Chums it is. No more foolishness.” 

“The moment you begin to pretend you’re in love with me, it 
will spoil everything. It’s funny,” said Travis, drawing on her 
gloves. “We’re doing a funny thing, Condy. With ninety-nine 
people out of one hundred, this little affair would have been all 
ended after our ‘explanation’ of last night — confessing, as we did, 
that we didn’t love each other. Most couples would have ‘drifted 
apart’ ; but here we are, planning to be chums, and have good times 
in our own original, unconventional way — and we can do it, too. 
There, there, he’s a thousand miles away. He’s not heard a single 
word I’ve said. Condy, are you listening to me?” 

“Blix,” he murmured, staring at her vaguely. “Blix — you look 


that way; I don’t know, look kind of blix. Don’t you feel sort of 
blix?” he inquired anxiously. 

“Blix?” 

He smote the table with his palm. “Capital !” he cried ; “sounds 
bully, and snappy, and crisp, and bright, and sort of sudden. Sounds 
— don’t you know, this way?” — and he snapped his fingers. “Don’t 
you see what I mean? Blix, that’s who you are. You’ve always 
been Blix, and I’ve just found it out. Blix,” he added, listening to 
the sound of the name. “Blix, Blix. Yes, yes; that’s your name.” 

“Blix?” she repeated; “but why Blix?” 

“Why not?” 

“I don’t know why not.” 

“Well, then,” he declared, as though that settled the question. 
They made ready to go, as it was growing late. 

“Will you tie that for me, Condy,” she asked, rising and turning 
the back of her head toward him, the ends of the veil held under 
her fingers. “Not too tight. Condy, don't pull it so tight. There, 
there, that will do. Have you everything that belongs to you? I 
know you’ll go away and leave something here. There’s your ciga- 
rette case, and your book, and of course the banjo.” 

As if warned by a mysterious instinct, the fat Chinaman made 
his appearance in the outer room. Condy put his fingers into his 
vest pocket, then dropped back upon his stool with a suppressed 
exclamation of horror. 

“Condy!” exclaimed Blix in alarm, “are you sick?” — for he had 
turned a positive white. 

“I haven’t a cent of money,” he murmured faintly. “I spent my 
last quarter for those beastly crackers. What’s to be done ? What 
is to be done? I’ll — I’ll leave him my watch. Yes, that’s the only 
thing.” 

Blix calmly took out her purse. “I expected it,” she said re- 
signedly. “I knew this would happen sooner or later, and I always 
have been prepared. How much is it, John?” she asked of the 
Chinaman. 

“Hefahdollah.” 

“I’ll never be able to look you in the face again,” protested 
Condy. “I’ll pay you back to-night. I will! I’ll send it up by a 
messenger boy.” 

“Then you would be a buffoon.” 

“Don’t!” he exclaimed. “Don’t, it humiliates me to the dust.” 

“Oh, come along and don’t be so absurd. It must be after five.” 


Blix 


39 

Half-way down the brass-bound stairs, he clapped his hand to 
his head with a start. 

“And now what is it?” she inquired meekly. 

“Forgotten, forgotten !” he exclaimed. “I knew I would forget 
something.” 

“/ knew it, you mean.” 

He ran back, and returned with the great bag of crackers, and 
thrust it into her hands. “Here, here, take these. We mustn’t 
leave these,” he declared earnestly. “It would be a shameful waste 
of money ;” and in spite of all her protests, he insisted upon taking 
the crackers along. 

“I wonder,” said Blix, as the two skirted the Plaza, going 
down to Kearney Street; “I wonder if I ought to ask him to 
supper ?” 

“Ask who — me? — how funny to — ” 

“I wonder if we are talked out — if it would spoil the day?” 

“Anyhow, I’m going to have supper at the Club ; and I’ve got to 
write my article some time to-night.” 

Blix fixed him with a swift glance of genuine concern. “Don’t 
play to-night, Condy,” she said, with a sudden gravity. 

“Fat lot / can play ! What money have I got to play with ?” 

“You might get some somewheres. But, anyhow, promise me 
you won’t play.” 

“Well, of course I’ll promise. How can I, if I haven’t any 
money? And besides, I’ve got my whaleback stuff to write. I’ll 
have supper at the Club, and go up in the library and grind out 
jcopy for a while.” 

“Condy,” said Blix, “I think that diver’s story is almost too 
good for ‘The Times.’ Why don’t you write it and send it East? 
Send it to the Centennial Company, why don’t you? They’ve paid 
some attention to you now, and it would keep your name in their 
minds if you sent the story to them, even if they didn’t publish it. 
Why don’t you think of that ?” 

“Fine — great idea! I’ll do that. Only I’ll have to write it out 
of business hours. It will be extra work.” 

“Never miiid, you do it ; and,” she added, as he put her on the 
cable car, “keep your mind on that thirty-thousand-word story of 
adventure. Good-by, Condy; haven’t we had the jolliest day that 
ever was?” 

“Couldn’t have been better. Good-by, Blix.” 

Condy returned to his club. It was about six o’clock. In re- 


Blix 


40 

sponse to his question, the hall-boy told him that Tracy Sar- 
geant had arrived a few moments previous, and had been asking 
for him. 

The Saturday of the week before, Condy had made an engage- 
ment with yofing Sargeant to have supper together that night, and 
perhaps go to the theatre afterward. And now at the sight of 
Sargeant in the “round window” of the main room, buried in the 
file of the “Gil Bias,” Condy was pleased to note that neither of them 
had forgotten the matter. 

Sargeant greeted him with extreme cordiality as he came up, 
and at once proposed a drink. Sargeant was a sleek, well-groomed, 
well-looking fellow of thirty, just beginning to show the effects of 
a certain amount of dissipation in the little puffs under the eyes and 
the faint blueness of the temples. The sudden death of his father, 
for which event Sargeant was still mourning, had left him in such 
position that his monthly income was about five times as large as 
Condy’s salary. The two had supper together, and Sargeant pro- 
posed the theatre. 

“No, no; I’ve got to work to-night,” asserted Condy. 

After dinner, while they were smoking their cigars in a window 
of the main room, one of the hall-boys came up and touched Condy 
on the arm. 

“Mr. Eckert, and Mr. Hendricks, and Mr. George Hands, and 
several other of those gentlemen are up in the card-room, and are 
asking for you and Mr. Sargeant.” 

“Why, I didn’t know the boys were here ! They’ve got a game 
going, Condy. Let’s go up and get in. Shall we?” 

Condy remembered that he had no money. “I’m flat broke, 
Tracy,” he announced, for he knew Sargeant well enough to make 
the confession without wincing. “No, I’ll not get in ; but I’ll go up 
and watch you a few minutes.” 

They ascended to the card-room, where the air was heavy and 
acrid with cigar smoke, and where the silence was broken only by 
the click of poker-chips. At the end of twenty minutes Condy was 
playing, having borrowed enough money of Sargeant to start him 
in the game. 

Unusually talkative and restless, he had suddenly hardened and 
stiffened to a repressed, tense calm; speechless, almost rigid in his 
chair. Excitable under even ordinary circumstances, his every fac- 
ulty was now keyed to its highest pitch. The nervous strain upon 
him was like the stretching and tightening of harp-strings, too taut 


Blix 


4i 


to quiver. The color left his face, and the moisture fled his lips. 
His projected article, his promise to Blix, all the jollity of the after- 
noon, all thought of time or place, faded away as the one indomita- 
ble, evil passion of the man leaped into life within him, and lashed 
and roweled him with excitement. His world resolved itself to a 
round green table, columns of tri-colored chips, and five ever-chang- 
ing cards that came and went and came again before his tired eyes 
like the changing, weaving colors of the kaleidoscope. Midnight 
struck, then one o’clock, then two, three, and four. Still his passion 
rode him like a hag, spurring the jaded body, rousing up the 
wearied brain. 

Finally, at half-past four, at a time when Condy was precisely 
where he had started, neither winner nor loser by so much as a 
dime, a round of Jack-pots was declared, and the game broke 
up. Condy walked home to the uptown hotel where he lived 
with his mother, and went to bed as the first milk-wagons be- 
gan to make their appearance and the newsboys to cry the 
morning papers. 

Then, as his tired eyes closed at last, occurred that strange trick 
of picture-making that the overtaxed brain plays upon the retina. 
A swift series of pictures of the day’s doings began to whirl through 
rather than before the pupils of his shut eyes. Condy saw again a 
brief vision of the street, and Blix upon the corner waiting to 
cross; then it was the gay, brisk confusion of the water-front, the 
old mate’s cabin aboard the whaleback, Chinatown, and a loop of 
vermilion cloth over a gallery rail, the golden balcony, the glint of 
the Stevenson ship upon the green Plaza, Blix playing the banjo, 
the delightful and picturesque confusion of the deserted Chinese 
restaurant ; Blix again, turning her head for him to fasten her veil, 
holding the ends with her white-kid fingers ; Blix once more, walk- 
ing at his side with her trim black skirt, her round little turban hat, 
her yellow hair, and her small dark, dancing eyes. 

Then, suddenly, he remembered the promise he had made her in 
the matter of playing that night. He winced sharply at this, and 
the remembrance of his fault harried and harassed him. In spite of 
himself, he felt contemptible. Yet he had broken his promises to 
her in this very matter of playing before — before that day of their 
visit to the Chinese restaurant — and had felt no great qualm of 
self-reproach. Had their relations changed? Rather the reverse, 
for they had done with “foolishness.” 

“Never worried me before,” muttered Condy, as he punched up 


Blix 


42 

his pillow — “never worried me before. Why should it worry me 
now — worry me like the devil ; — and she caught on to that ‘point’ 
about the slope of forty-five degrees.” 


V 

Condy began his week’s work for the supplement behindhand. 
Naturally he overslept himself Tuesday morning, and, not having 
any. change in his pockets, was obliged to walk down to the office. 
He arrived late, to find the compositors already fretting for copy. 
His editor promptly asked for the whaleback stuff, and Condy was 
forced into promising it within a half-hour. It was out of the 
question to write the article according to his own idea in so short a 
time ; so Condy faked the stuff from the exchange clipping, after all. 
His description of the boat and his comments upon her mission — 
taken largely at second hand — served only to fill space in the paper. 
They were lacking both in interest and in point. There were no 
illustrations. The article was a failure. 

But Condy redeemed himself by a witty interview later in the 
week with an emotional actress, and by a solemn article — compiled 
after an hour’s reading in Lafcadio Hearn and the Encyclopedia — 
on the “Industrial Renaissance in Japan.” 

But the idea of the diver’s story came back to him again and 
again, and Thursday night after supper he went down to his club, 
and hid himself at a corner desk in the library, and, in a burst of 
enthusiasm, wrote out some two thousand words of it. In order to 
get {he “technical details,” upon which he set such store, he con- 
sulted the Encyclopedias again, and “worked in” a number of un- 
familiar phrases and odd-sounding names. He was so proud of the 
result that he felt he could not wait until the tale was finished and 
in print to try its effect. He wanted appreciation and encouragement 
upon the instant. He thought of Blix. 

“She saw the point in Morrowbie Jukes’ description of the slope 
of the sandhill,” he told himself ; and the next moment had re- 
solved to go up and see her the next evening, and read to her 
what he had written. 

This was on Thursday. All through that week Blix had kept 
much to herself, and for the first time in two years had begun to 
spend every evening at home. In the morning of each day she 
helped Victorine with the upstairs work, making the beds, putting the 


Blix 


43 

.rooms to rights ; or consulted with the butcher’s and grocer’s boys 
at the head of the back stairs, or chaffered with urbane and smiling 
Chinamen with their balanced vegetable baskets. She knew the 
house and its management at her fingers’ ends, and supervised every- 
thing that went forward. Laurie Flagg coming to call upon her, 
on Wednesday afternoon, to remonstrate upon her sudden defection, 
found her in the act of tacking up a curtain across the pantry 
window. 

But Blix had the afternoons and evenings almost entirely to 
herself. These hours, heretofore taken up with functions and the 
discharge of obligations, dragged not a little during the week that 
followed upon her declaration of independence. Wednesday after- 
noon, however, was warm and fine, and she went to the Park with 
Snooky. Without looking for it or even expecting it, Blix came 
across a little Japanese tea-house, or rather a tiny Japanese garden, 
set with almost toy Japanese houses and pavilions, where tea was 
served and thin sweetish wafers for five cents. Blix and Snooky 
went in. There was nobody about but the Japanese serving woman. 
Snooky was in raptures, and Blix spent a delightful half-hour there, 
drinking Japanese tea, and feeding the wafers to the carp and gold- 
fish in the tiny pond immediately below where she sat. A China- 
man, evidently of the merchant class, came in, with a Chinese woman 
following. As he took his place and the Japanese girl came up to 
get his order, Blix overheard him say in English : “Bring tea for-um 
leddy.” 

“He had to speak in English to her,” she whispered ; “isn’t that 
splendid! Did you notice that, Snooky?” 

On the way home Blix was wondering how she should pass her 
evening. She was to have made one of a theatre party where Jack 
Carter was to be present. Then she suddenly remembered “Mor- 
rowbie Jukes,” “The Return of Imri,” and “Krishna Mulvaney.” 
She continued on past her home, downtown, and returned late for 
supper with “Plain Tales” and “Many Inventions.” 

Toward half-past eight there came a titter of the electric bell. 
At the moment Blix was in the upper chamber of the house of 
Suddhoo, quaking with exquisite horror at the Seal-cutter’s magic. 
She looked up quickly as the bell rang. It was not Condy Rivers’ 
touch. She swiftly reflected that it was Wednesday night, and that 
she might probably expect Frank Catlin. He was a fair specimen 
of the Younger Set, a sort of modified Jack Carter, and called upon 
her about once a fortnight. No doubt he would hint darkly as to his 


Blix 


44 

riotous living during the past few days and refer to his diet of 
bromo-seltzers. He would be slangy, familiar, call her by her first 
name as many times as he dared, discuss the last dance of the Satur- 
day cotillion, and try to make her laugh over Carter’s drunkenness 
Blix knew the type. Catlin was hardly out of college ; but the older 
girls, even the young women of twenty-five or six, encouraged and 
petted these youngsters, driven to the alternative by the absolute 
dearth of older men. 

*Tm not at home, Victorine,” announced Blix, intercepting the 
maid in the hall. It chanced that it was not Frank Catlin, but an- 
other boy of precisely the same breed; and Blix returned to Sudd- 
hoo, Mrs. Hawksbee, and Mulvaney with a little cuddling move- 
ment of satisfaction. 

“There is only one thing I regret about this,” she said to Condy 
Rivers on the Friday night of that week; “that is, that I never 
thought of doing it before.” Then suddenly she put up her hand to 
shield her eyes, as though from an intense light, turning away her 
head abruptly. 

“I say, what is it ? What — what’s the matter ?” he exclaimed. 

Blix peeped at him fearfully from between her fingers. “He’s 
got it on,” she whispered — “that awful crimson scarf.” 

“Hoh !” said Condy, touching his scarf nervously, “it’s — it’s very 
swell. Is it too loud?” he asked uneasily. 

Blix put her fingers in her ears ; then : 

“Condy, you’re a nice, amiable young man, and, if you’re not 
brilliant, you’re good and kind to your aged mother ; but your scarfs 
and neckties are simply impossible.” 

“Well, look at this room!” he shouted — they were in the parlor. 
“You needn’t talk about bad taste. Those drapes — oh-h ! those 
drapes ! ! Yellow, s’help me ! And those bisque figures that you get 
with every pound of tea you buy ; and this, this, this” he whimpered, 
waving his hands at the decorated sewer-pipe with its gilded cat- 
tails. “Oh, speak to me of this; speak to me of art; speak to me 
of aesthetics. Cat-tails, gilded. Of course, why not gilded!” He 
wrung his hands. “ ‘Somewhere people are happy. Somewhere 
little children are at play — ’ ” 

“Oh, hush !” she interrupted. “I know it’s bad ; but we’ve always 
had it so, and I won’t have it abused. Let’s go into the dining-room, 
anyway. We’ll sit in there after this. We’ve always been stiff and 
constrained in here.” 

They went out into the dining-room, and drew up a couple of 


Blix 


45 

arm-chairs into the bay window, and sat there looking out. Blix had 
not yet lighted the gas — it was hardly dark enough for that ; and for 
upward of ten minutes they sat and watched the evening dropping 
into night. 

Below them the hill fell away so abruptly that the roofs of the 
nearest houses were almost at their feet; and beyond these the city 
tumbled raggedly down to meet the bay in a confused, vague mass 
of roofs, cornices, cupolas, and chimneys, blurred and indistinct in 
the twilight, but here and there pierced by a new-lighted street lamp. 
Then came the bay. To the east they could see Goat Island, and the 
fleet of sailing-ships anchored off the water-front; while directly in 
their line of vision the island of Alcatraz, with its triple crown of 
forts, started from the surface of the water. Beyond was the Contra 
Costa shore, a vast streak of purple against the sky. The eye 
followed its sky-line westward till it climbed, climbed, climbed up 
a long slope that suddenly leaped heavenward with the crest of 
Tamalpais, purple and still, looking always to the sunset like a great 
watching sphinx. Then, further on, the slope seemed to break like 
the breaking of an advancing billow, and go tumbling, crumbling 
downward to meet the Golden Gate — the narrow inlet of green tide- 
water with its flanking Presidio. But, further than this, the eye 
was stayed. Further than this there was nothing, nothing but a 
vast, illimitable plain of green — the open Pacific. But at this 
hour the color of the scene was its greatest charm. It 
glowed with all the sombre radiance of a cathedral. Every- 
thing was seen through a haze of purple — from the low green 
hills in the Presidio Reservation to the faint red mass of Mount 
Diablo shrugging its rugged shoulder over the Contra Costa foot- 
hills. As the evening faded, the west burned down to a dull red glow 
that overlaid the blue of the bay with a sheen of ruddy gold. The 
foot-hills of the opposite shore, Diablo, and at last even Tamalpais, 
resolved themselves in the velvet gray of the sky. Outlines were 
lost. Only the masses remained, and these soon began to blend 
into one another. The sky, and land, and the city’s huddled roofs 
were one. Only the sheen of dull gold remained, piercing the single 
vast mass of purple like the blade of a golden sword. 

“There’s a ship !” said Blix in a low tone. 

A four-master was dropping quietly through the Golden Gate, 
swimming on that sheen of gold, a mere shadow, specked with 
lights, red and green. In a few moments her bows were shut from 
sight by the old fort at the Gate. Then her red light vanished, then 


Blix 


46 

the mainmast. She was gone. By midnight she would be out of 
sight of land, rolling on the swell of the lonely ocean under the 
moon’s white eye. 

Condy and Blix sat quiet and without speech, not caring to 
break the charm of the evening. For quite five minutes they sat 
thus, watching the stars light one by one, and the immense gray 
night settle and broaden and widen from mountain-top to horizon. 
They did not feel the necessity of making conversation. There was 
no constraint in their silence now. 

Gently, and a little at a time, Condy turned his head and looked 
at Blix. There was just light enough to see. She was leaning back 
in her chair, her hands fallen into her lap, her head back and a little 
to one side. As usual, she was in black ; but now it was some sort 
of dinner-gown that left her arms and neck bare. The line of the 
chin and the throat and the sweet round curve of the shoulder had 
in it something indescribable — something that was related to music, 
and that eluded speech. Her hair was nothing more than a warm 
colored mist without form or outline. The sloe-brown of her little 
eyes and the flush of her cheek were mere inferences — like the 
faintest stars that are never visible when looked at directly; and it 
seemed to him that there was disengaged from her something for 
which there was no name ; something that appealed to a mysterious 
sixth senses — a sense that only stirred at such quiet moments as this ; 
something that was now a dim, sweet radiance, now a faint aroma, 
and now again a mere essence, an influence, an impression — nothing 
more. It seemed to him as if her sweet, , clean purity and womanli- 
ness took a form of its own which his accustomed senses were too 
gross to perceive. Only a certain vague tenderness in him went 
out to meet and receive this impalpable presence; a tenderness not 
for her only, but for all the good things of the world. Often he 
had experienced the same feeling when listening to music. Her 
sweetness, her goodness, appealed to what he guessed must be the 
noblest in him. And she was only nineteen. Suddenly his heart 
swelled, the ache came to his throat and the smart to his eyes. 

“Blixy,” he said, just above a whisper; “Blixy, wish I was a 
better sort of chap.” 

“That’s the beginning of being better, isn’t it, Condy?” she 
answered, turning toward him, her chin on her hand. 

“It does seem a pity,” he went on, “that when you want to do 
The right, straight thing, and be clean and fine, that you can’t just be 
it, and have it over with. It’s the keeping it up that’s the grind.” 


Blix 


47 

“But it’s the keeping it up, Condy, that makes you worth being 
good when you finally get to be good; don’t you think? It’s the 
keeping it up that makes you strong; and then when you get to be 
good you can make your goodness count. What’s a good man if he’s 
weak? — if his goodness is better than he is himself? It’s the good 
man who is strong — as strong as his goodness, and who- can make 
his goodness count — who is the right kind of man. That’s what I 
think.” 

There’s something in that, there’s something in that.” Then, 
after a pause: “I played Monday night, after all, Blix, after prom- 
ising I wouldn’t.” 

For a time she did not answer, and when she spoke, she spoke 
quietly : “Well — I’m glad you told me” ; and after a little she added, 
“Can’t you stop, Condy?” 

“Why, yes — yes, of course — I — oh, Blix, sometimes I don’t 
know! You can’t understand! How could a girl understand the 
power of it ? Other things, I don’t say ; but when it comes to gam- 
bling, there seems to be another me that does precisely as he chooses, 
whether / will or not. But I’m going to do my best. I haven’t 
played since, although there was plenty of chance. You see, this 
card business is only a part of this club life, this city life — like drink- 
ing and — other vices of men. If I didn’t have to lead the life, or if 
I didn’t go with that crowd — Sargeant and the rest of those men — 
it would be different ; easier, maybe.” 

“But a man ought to be strong enough to be himself and master 
of himself anywhere. Condy, is there anything in the world better 
or finer than a strong man?” 

“Not unless it is a good woman, Blix.” 

“I suppose I look at it from a woman’s point of view ; but for me 
a strong man — strong in everything — is the grandest thing in the 
world. Women love strong men, Condy. They can forgive a 
strong man almost anything.” 

Condy did not immediately answer, and in the interval an idea 
occurred to Blix that at once hardened into a determination. But 
she said nothing at the moment. The spell of the sunset was gone, 
and they had evidently reached the end of that subject of their talk. 
Blix rose to light the gas. Will you promise me one thing, Condy ?” 
she said. “Don’t if you don’t want to. But will you promise me 
that you will tell me whenever you do play?” 

“That I’ll promise you!” exclaimed Condy; “and I'll keep that, 


Blix 


48 

“And now, let’s hear the story — or what you’ve done of it.” 

They drew up to the dining-room table with its cover of blue 
denim edged with white cord, and Condy unrolled his manuscript 
and read through what he had written. She approved, and, as he 
had foreseen, “caught on” to every one of his points. He was 
almost ready to burst into cheers when she said : 

“Any one reading that would almost believe you had been a 
diver yourself, or at least had lived with divers. Those little de- 
tails count, don’t they? Condy, I’ve an idea. See what you think of 
it. Instead of having the story end with his leaving her down 
there and going away, do it this way. Let him leave her there, and 
then go back after a long time when he gets to be an old man. Fix 
it up some way to make it natural. Have him go down to see her 
and never come up again, see? And leave the reader in doubt as 
to whether it was an accident or whether he did it on purpose.” 

Condy choked back a whoop and smote his knee. “Blix, you’re 
the eighth wonder! Magnificent — glorious! Say!” — he fixed her 
with a glance of curiosity — “you ought to take to story-writing 
yourself.” 

“No, no,” she retorted significantly. “I’ll just stay with my sing- 
ing and be content with that. But remember that story don’t go to 
‘The Times’ supplement. At least not until you have tried it East 
— with the Centennial Company, at any rate.” 

“Well, I guess not!” snorted Condy. “Why, this is going to 
be one of the best yarns I ever wrote.” 

A little later on he inquired with sudden concern: “Have you 
got anything to eat in the house?” 

“I never saw such a man!” declared Blix; “you are always 
hungry.” 

“I love to eat,” he protested. 

“Well, we’ll make some creamed oysters; how would that do?” 
suggested Blix. 

Condy rolled his eyes. “Oh, speak to me of creamed oysters !” 
Then, with abrupt solemnity : “Blix, I never in my life had as many 
oysters as I could eat.” 

She made the creamed oysters in the kitchen over the gas-stove, 
and they ate them there — Condy sitting on the washboard of the 
sink, his plate in his lap. 

Condy had a way of catching up in his hands whatever happened 
to be nearest him, and, while still continuing to talk, examining it 
with apparent deep interest. Just now it happened to be the morn- 


Blix 


49 

ing’s paper that Victorine had left on the table. For five minutes 
Condy had been picking it up and laying it down, frowning ab- 
stractedly at it during the pauses in the conversation. Suddenly he 
became aware of what it was, and instantly read aloud the first 
item that caught his glance : 

“ ‘Personal. — Young woman, thirty-one, good housekeeper, de- 
sires acquaintance respectable middle-aged gentleman. Object, 
matrimony. Address K. D. B., this office.’ — Hum!” he commented, 
“nothing equivocal about K. D. B. ; has the heroism to call herself 
young at thirty-one. I’ll bet she is a good housekeeper. Right to 
the point. If K. D. B. don’t see what she wants, she asks for it.” 

“I wonder,” mused Blix, “what kind of people they are who put 
personals in the papers. K. D. B., for instance; who is she, and 
what is she like?” 

“They’re not tough,” Condy assured her. “I see ’em often 
down at ‘The Times’ office. They are usually a plain, matter-of- 
fact sort, quite conscientious, you know ; generally middle-aged — 
or thirty-one ; outgrown their youthful follies and illusions, and 
want to settle down.” 

“Read some more,” urged Blix. Condy went on. 

“ ‘Bachelor, good habits, twenty-five, affectionate disposition, ac- 
complishments, money, desires acquaintance pretty, refined girl. 
Object, matrimony. McB., this office.’ ” 

“No, I don’t like McB.,” said Blix. “He’s too — ornamental, 
somehow.” 

“He wouldn’t do for K. D. B., would he?” 

“Oh, my, no! He’d make her very unhappy.” 

“ ‘Widower, two children, home-loving disposition, desires intro- 
duction to good, honest woman to make home for his children. 
Matrimony, if suitable. B. P. T., Box A, this office.’ ” 

“He’s not for K. D. B., that’s flat,” declared Blix; “the idea, 
‘matrimony if suitable’ — patronizing enough! I know just what 
kind of an old man B. P. T. is. I know he would want K. D. B. 
to warm his slippers, and would be fretful and grumpy. B. P. T., 
just an abbreviation of bumptious. No, he can’t have her.” 

Condy read the next two or three to himself, despite her pro- 
tests. 

“Condy, don’t be mean ! Read them to — ” 

“Ah!” he exclaimed, “here’s one for K. D. B. Behold, the 
bridegroom cometh! Listen.” 

“ ‘Bachelor, thirty-nine, sober and industrious, retired sea cap- 

C— IV— Norris 


Blix 


5 ° 

tain, desires acquaintance respectable young woman, good house- 
keeper and manager. Object, matrimony. Address Captain Jack, 
office this paper.” 

“I know he’s got a wooden leg!” cried Blix. “Can’t you just 
see it sticking out between the lines? And he lives all alone some- 
where down near the bay with a parrot — ” 

“And makes a glass of grog every night.” 

“And smokes a long clay pipe.” 

“But he chews tobacco.” 

“Yes, isn’t it a pity he will chew that nasty, smelly tobacco? 
But K. D. B. will break him of that.” 

“Oh, is he for K. D. B.?” 

“Sent by Providence !” declared Blix. “They were born for each 
other. Just see, K. D. B. is a good housekeeper, and wants a re- 
spectable middle-aged gentleman. Captain Jack is a respectable 
middle-aged gentleman, and wants a good housekeeper. Oh, and 
besides, I can read between the lines! I just feel they would be 
congenial. If they know what’s best for themselves, they would 
write to each other right away.” 

“But wouldn’t you love to be there and see them meet !” ex- 
claimed Condy. 

“Can’t we fix it up some way,” said Blix, “to bring these two 
together — to help them out in some way?” 

Condy smote the table and jumped to his feet. 

“Write to ’em!” he shouted. “Write to K. D. B. and sign it 
Captain Jack, and write to Captain Jack — ’•’ 

“And sign it K. D. B.,” she interrupted, catching his idea. 

“And have him tell her, and her tell him,” he added, “to meet 
at some place; and then we can go to that place and hide, and 
watch.” 

“But how will we know them? How would they know each 
other? They’ve never met.” 

“We’ll tell them both to wear a kind of flower. Then we can 
know them, and they can know each other. Of course as soon as 
they began to talk they would find out they hadn’t written.” 

“But they wouldn’t care.” 

“No — they want to meet each other. They would be thankful 
to us for bringing them together.” 

“Won’t it be the greatest fun?” 

“Fun ! Why, it will be a regular drama. Only we are running 
the show, and everything is real. Let’s get at it !” 


Blix 


5 1 

Blix ran into her room and returned with writing material. 
Condy looked at the note-paper critically. “This kind’s too swell. 
K. D. B. wouldn’t use Irish linen — never! Here, this is better, 
glazed with blue lines and a flying bird stamped in the corner. Now 
I’ll write for the Captain, and you write for K. D. B.” 

“But where will we have them meet?” 

This was a point. They considered the Chinese restaurant, 
the Plaza, Lotta’s fountain, the Mechanics’ Library, and even 
the cathedral over in the Mexican quarter, but arrived at no 
decision. 

“Did you ever hear of Luna’s restaurant?” said Condy. “By 
Jove, it’s just the place! It’s the restaurant where you get Mexican 
dinners ; right in the heart of the Latin quarter ; quiet little old- 
fashioned place, below the level of the street, respectable as a tomb. 
I was there just once. We’ll have ’em meet there at seven in the 
evening. No one is there at that hour. The place isn’t patronized 
much, and it shuts up at eight. You and I can go there and have 
dinner at six, say, and watch for them to come.” 

Then they set to work at their letters. 

“Now,” said Condy, “we must have these sound perfectly nat- 
ural, because if. either of these people smell the smallest kind of a 
rat, you won’t catch ’em. You must write not as you would write, 
but as you think they would. This is an art, a kind of fiction, don’t 
you see? We must imagine a certain character, and write a letter 
consistent with that character. Then it’ll sound natural. Now, 
K. D. B. Well, K. D. B., she’s prim. Let’s have her prim, and 
proud of using correct, precise, ‘elegant’ language. I guess she 
wears mits, and believes in cremation. Let’s have her believe in cre- 
mation. And Captain Jack; oh! he’s got a terrible voice, like this, 
row-row-row . see? and whiskers, very fierce; and he says, ‘Belay 
there !’ and ‘Avast !’ and is very grandiloquent and orotund and gal- 
lant when it comes to women. Oh, he’s the devil of a man when it 
comes to women, is Captain Jack!” 

After countless trials and failures, they evolved the two follow- 
ing missives, which Condy posted that night : 

“ Captain Jack. 

“Sir:— I have perused with entire satisfaction your personal in ‘The 
Times.’ T should like to know more of you. I read between the lines, and 
my perception ineradicably convinces me that you are honest and respec- 
table. I do not believe I should compromise my self-esteem at all in 
granting you an interview. I shall be at Luna’s restaurant at seven pre- 


Blix 


52 

cisely, next Monday eve, and will bear a bunch of white marguerites. Will 
you likewise, and wear a marguerite in your lapel? 

“Trusting this will find you in health, I am 

“Respectfully yours, 

“K. D. B. ” 


“ Miss K. D. B. 

“Dear Miss: — From the modest and retiring description of your qualities 
and character, I am led to believe that I will find in you an agreeable life 
companion. Will you not accord me the great favor of a personal inter- 
view? I shall esteem it a high honor. I will be at Luna’s Mexican restau- 
rant at seven of the clock p.m. on Monday evening next. May I express the 
fervent hope that you also will be there? I name the locality because it is 
quiet and respectable. I shall wear a white marguerite in my buttonhole. 
Will you also carry a bunch of the same flower? 

“Yours to command, 

“Captain Jack.” 

So great was her interest in the affair that Blix even went out 
with Condy while he mailed the letters in the nearest box, for he 
was quite capable of forgetting the whole matter as soon as he was 
out of the house. 

“Now let it work !” she exclaimed as the iron flap clanked down 
upon the disappearing envelopes. But Condy was suddenly smitten 
with nameless misgiving. “Now we’ve done it ! now we’ve done 
it!” he cried aghast. “I wish we hadn’t. We’re in a fine fix now.” 

Still uneasy, he saw Blix back to the flat, and bade her good-by 
at the door. 

But before she went to bed that night, Blix sought out her 
father, who was still sitting up tinkering with the cuckoo clock, which 
he had taken all to pieces under the pretext that it was out of order 
and went too fast. 

“Papum,” said Blix, sitting down on the rug before him, “did 
you ever — when you were a pioneer, when you first came out here 
in the fifties — did you ever play poker?” 

“I — oh, well! it was the only amusement the miners had for a 
long time.” 

“I want you to teach me.” 

The old man let the clock fall into his lap and stared. But Blix 
explained her reasons. 


Blix 


53 


VI 

The next day was Saturday, and Blix had planned a walk out to 
the Presidio. But at breakfast, while she was debating whether she 
should take with her Howard and Snooky, or “Many Inventions,” 
she received a note from Condy, sent by special messenger : 

“ ‘All our fun is spoiled,’ he wrote. ‘I’ve got ptomaine poisoning from 
eating the creamed oysters last night, and am in for a solid fortnight spent 
in bed. Have passed a horrible night. Can’t you look in at the hotel this 
afternoon? My mother will be here at the time.’ ” 

“Ptomaine poisoning!” The name had an ugly sound, and 
Condy’s use of the term inferred the doctor’s visit. Blix decided that 
she would put off her walk until the afternoon, and call on Mrs. 
Rivers at once, and ask how Condy did. 

She got away from the flat about ten o’clock, but on the steps 
outside met Condy dressed as if for bicycling, and smoking a 
cigarette. 

“Fve got eleven dollars !” he announced cheerily. 

“But I thought it was ptomaine poisoning !” she cried with sud- 
den vexation. 

“Pshaw ! that’s what the doctor says. He’s a flapdoodle ; nothing 
but a kind of a sort of a pain. It’s all gone now. I’m as fit as a 
fiddle — and I’ve got eleven dollars. Let’s go somewhere and do 
something.” 

“But your work?” 

“They don’t expect me. When I thought I was going to be sick, 
I telephoned the office, and they said all right, that they didn’t need 
me. Now. I’ve got eleven dollars, and there are three holidays of 
perfect weather before us : to-day, to-morrow, and Monday. What 
will we do? What must we do to be saved? Our matrimonial 
objects don’t materialize till Monday night. In the meanwhile, 
what? Shall we go down to Chinatown — to the restaurant, or to 
the water-front again? Maybe the mate on the whaleback would 
invite us to lunch. Or,” added Condy, his eye caught by a fresh-fish 
peddler who had just turned into the street, “we can go fishing.” 

“For oysters, perhaps.” 


54 


Blix 


But the idea had caught Condy’s fancy. 

“Blix!” he exclaimed, “let’s go fishing.” 

“Where?” 

“I don’t know. Where do people fish around here? Where 
there’s water, I presume.” 

“No, is it possible?” she asked with deep concern. “I thought 
they fished in their back yards, or in their front parlors perhaps.” 

“Oh, you be quiet ! you’re all the time guying me,” he answered. 
“Let me think — let me think,” he went on, frowning heavily, scour- 
ing at his hair. Suddenly he slapped a thigh. 

“Come on,” he cried, “I’ve an idea !” He was already half-way 
down the steps, when Blix called him back. 

“Leave it all to me,” he assured her ; “trust me implicitly. Don’t 
you want to go ?” he demanded with abrupt disappointment. 

“Want to!” she exclaimed. “Why, it would be the very best 
kind of fun, but — ” 

“Well, then, come along.” 

They took a downtown car. 

“I’ve got a couple of split bamboo rods,” he explained as the 
car slid down the terrific grade of the Washington-Street hill. “I 
haven’t used ’em in years — not since we lived East; but they’re 
hand-made, and are tip-top. I haven’t any other kind of tackle; 
but it’s just as well, because the tackle will all depend upon where 
we are going to fish.” 

“Where’s that?” 

“Don’t know yet ; am going down now to find out.” 

He took her down to the principal dealer in sporting goods on 
Market Street. It was a delicious world, whose atmosphere and 
charm were not to be resisted. There were shot-guns in rows, their 
gray barrels looking like so many organ-pipes; sheaves of fishing- 
rods, from the four-ounce whisp of the brook-trout up to the rigid 
eighteen-ounce lance of the king-salmon and sea-bass ; showcases of 
wicked revolvers, swelling by calibres into the thirty-eight and 
forty-four man-killers of the plainsmen and Arizona cavalry ; hunt- 
ing knives and dirks, and the slender steel whips of the fencers; 
files of Winchesters, sleeping quietly in their racks, waiting patient- 
ly for the signal to speak the one grim word they knew ; swarms 
of artificial flies of every conceivable shade, brown, gray, black, 
gray-brown, gray-black, with here and there a brisk vermilion note ; 
coils of line, from the thickness of a pencil, spun to hold the sullen 
plunges of a jew-fish off the Catalina Islands, down to the sea- 


Blix 


55 

green gossamers that a vigorous fingerling might snap; hooks, 
snells, guts, leaders, gaffs, cartridges, shells, and all the entrancing 
munitions of the sportsman, that savored of lonely canons, deer- 
licks, mountain streams, quail uplands, and the still reaches of inlet 
and marsh grounds, gray and cool in the early autumn dawn. 

Condy and Blix got the attention of a clerk, and Condy ex- 
plained. 

“I want to go fishing — we want to go fishing. We want some 
place where we can go and come in the same day, and we want to 
catch fair-sized fish — no minnows/’ 

The following half-hour was charming. Never was there a 
clerk more delightful. It would appear that his one object in life 
was that Condy and- Blix should catch fish. The affairs of the 
nation stood still while he pondered, suggested, advised, and delib- 
erated. He told them where to go, how to get there, what train 
to take coming back, and who to ask for when they arrived. They 
would have to wait till Monday before going, but could return long 
before the fated hour of 7 p. m. 

“Ask for Richardson,” said the clerk; “and here, give him my 
card. He’ll put you on to the good spots; some places are A-i 
to-day, and to-morrow in the same place you can’t kill a single 
fish.” 

Condy nudged Blix as the Mentor turned away to get his card. 

“Notice that,” he whispered: “kill a fish. You don’t say ‘catch,’ 
you say ‘kill’ — technical detail.” 

Then they bought their tackle: a couple of cheap reels, lines, 
leaders, sinkers, a book of assorted flies that the delightful clerk 
suggested, and a beautiful little tin box painted green, and stenciled 
with a gorgeous gold trout upon the lid, in which they were to keep 
the pint of salted shrimps to be used as bait in addition to the flies. 
Blix would get these shrimps at a little market near her home. 

“But,” said the clerk, “you got to get a permit to fish in that 
lake. Have you got a pull with the Water Company? Are you a 
stockholder ?” 

Condy’s face fell, and Blix gave a little gasp of dismay. They 
looked at each other. Here was a check, indeed. 

“Well,” said the sublime being in shirt sleeves from behind the 
counter, “see what you can do ; and if you can’t make it, come back 
here an’ lemmeno, and we’ll fix you up in some other place. But 
Lake San Andreas has been bang-up this last week — been some 
great kills there ; hope to the deuce you can make it.” 


Everything now hinged upon this permit. It was not until their 
expedition had been in doubt that Condy and Blix realized how 
alluring had been its prospects. 

“Oh, I guess you can get a permit,” said the clerk soothingly. 
“An' if you make any good kills, lemmeno and I’ll put it in the 
paper. Fm the editor of the ‘ Sport- with-Gun-and-Rod’ column in 
‘The Press,’ ” he added with a flush of pride. 

Toward the middle of the afternoon Blix, who was waiting atr 
home, in great suspense, for that very purpose, received another 
telegram from Condy: 

“Tension of situation relieved. Unconditional permission obtained. 
Don’t forget the shrimps.” 

It had been understood that Condy was to come to the flat on 
Sunday afternoon to talk over final arrangements with Blix. But 
as it was, Saturday evening saw him again at the Bessemers. 

He had been down at his club in the library, writing the last 
paragraphs of his diver’s story, when, just as he finished, Sargeant 
discovered him. 

“Why, Conny, old man, all alone here? Let’s go downstairs and 
have a cigar. Hendricks and George Hands are coming around in 
half an hour. They told me not to let you get away.” 

Condy stirred nervously in his chair. He knew what that meant. 
He had enough money in his pockets to play that night, and in an 
instant the enemy was all awake. The rowel was in his flank again, 
and the scourge at his back. Sargeant stood there, the well- 
groomed clubman of thirty ; a little cynical perhaps, but a really good 
fellow for all that, and undeniably fond of Condy. But somewhere 
with the eyes of some second self Condy saw the girl of nine- 
teen, part child and part woman ; saw her goodness, her fine, 
sweet feminine strength as it were a dim radiance ; “What’s 
a good man worth, Condy,” she had said, “if he’s not a strong 
man ?'” 

“I suppose we’ll have a game going before midnight,” admitted 
Sargeant resignedly, smiling good-humoredly nevertheless. 

Condy set his teeth. “I’ll join you later. Wait a few moments,” 
he said. He hurried to the office of the club, and sent a despatch 
to Blix — the third since morning: 

“Can I come up right away? It’s urgent. Send answer by this 
messenger.” 

He got his answer within three-quarters of an hour, and left the 


Blix 


club as Hendricks and George Hands arrived by the elevator en- 
trance. 

Sitting in the bay window of the dining-room, he told Blix why 
he had come. 

“Oh, you were right!” she told him. “Always, always come, 
when — when you feel you must.” 

“It gets so bad sometimes, Blix,” he confessed with abject self- 
contempt, “that when I can’t get some one to play against I’ll sit 
down and deal dummy hands, and bet on them. Just the touch of 
the cards — just the feel of the chips. Faugh! it’s shameful.” 

The day following, Sunday, Condy came to tea as usual; and 
after the meal, as soon as the family and Victorine had left the pair 
alone in the dining-room, they set about preparing for their mor- 
row’s excursion. Blix put up their lunch — sandwiches of what 
Condy called “devilish” ham, hard-boiled eggs, stuffed olives, and a 
bottle of claret. 

Condy took off his coat and made a great show of stringing the 
tackle : winding the lines from the spools on to the reels, and attach- 
ing the sinkers and flies to the leaders, smoking the while, and 
scowling fiercely. He got the lines fearfully and wonderfully 
snarled, he caught the hooks in the table-cloth, he lost the almost 
invisible gut leaders on the floor and looped the sinkers on the lines 
when they should have gone on the leaders. In the end Blix had 
to help him out, disentangling the lines foot by foot with a patience 
that seemed to Condy little short of superhuman. 

At nine o’clock she said decisively: 

“Do you know what time we must get up in the morning if we 
are to have breakfast and get the seven-forty train? Quarter of six 
by the latest, and you must get up earlier than that, because you’re 
at the hotel and have further to go. Come here for breakfast, and — 
listen — be here by half-past six — are you listening, Condy? — and 
we’ll go down to the depot from here. Don’t forget to bring the 
rods.” 

“I’ll wear my bicycle suit,” he said, “and one of those golf 
scarfs that wrap around your neck.” 

“No,” she declared, “I won’t have it. Wear the oldest clothes 
you’ve got, but look fairly respectable, because we’re to go to 
I Aina’s when we get back, remember. And now go home; you need 
all the sleep you can get if you are to get up at six o’clock.” 

Instead of being late, as Blix had feared, Condy was absurdly 
ahead of time the next morning. For a wonder, he had not for- 


58 Blix 

gotten the rods; but he was one tremor of nervousness. He would 
eat no breakfast. 

“We’re going to miss that train,” he would announce from time 
to time; “I just know it. Blix, look what time it is. We ought to 
be on the way to the depot now. Come on; you don’t want any 
more coffee. Have you got everything? Did you put the reels in 
the lunch-basket? — and the fly-book? Lord, if we should forget 
the fly-book!” 

He managed to get her to the depot over half an hour ahead of 
time. The train had not even backed in, nor the ticket office opened. 

“I told you, Condy, I told you,” complained Blix, sinking help- 
lessly upon a bench in the waiting-room. 

“No — no — no,” he answered vaguely, looking nervously about, 
his head in the air. “We’re none too soon — have more time to rest 
now. I wonder what track the train leaves from. I wonder if it 
stops at San Bruno. I wonder how far it is from San Bruno to 
Lake San Andreas. I’m afraid it’s going to rain. Heavens and 
earth, Blix, we forgot the shrimps!” 

“No, no! Sit down, I’ve got the shrimps. Condy, you make me 
so nervous I shall scream in a minute.” 

Some three-quarters of an hour later the train had set them down 
at San Bruno — nothing more than a road-house, the headquarters 
for duck-shooters and fishermen from the city. However, Blix and 
Condy were the only visitors. Everybody seemed to be especially 
nice to them on that wonderful morning. Even the supercilious 
ticket-seller at the San Francisco depot had unbent, and wished 
them good luck. The conductor of the train had shown himself 
affable. The very brakeman had gone out of his way to apprise 
them, quite five minutes ahead of time, that “the next stop was 
their place.” And at San Bruno the proprietor of the road-house 
himself hitched up to drive them over to the lake, announcing that 
he would call for them at “Richardson’s” in time for the evening 
train. 

“And he only asked me four bits for both trips,” whispered 
Condy to Blix as they jogged along. 

The country was beautiful. It was hardly eight o’clock, and 
the morning still retained much of the brisk effervescence of the 
early dawn. Great bare, rolling hills of gray-green, thinly scat- 
tered with live-oak, bore back from the road on either hand. The 
sky was pale blue. There was a smell of cows in the air, and twice 
they heard an unseen lark singing. It was very still. The old 


Blix 


59 

an d complacent horse were embalmed in a pungent aroma 
of old leather and of stables that was entrancing ; and a sweet smell 
of grass and sap came to them in occasional long whiffs. There 
was exhilaration in the very thought of being alive on that odorous, 
still morning. The young blood went spanking in the veins. Blix's 
cheeks were ruddy, her little dark-brown eyes fairly coruscating 
with pleasure. 

“Condy, isn’t it all splendid ?” she suddenly burst out. 

“I feel regularly bigger,” he declared solemnly. “I could do 
anything a morning like this.” 

Then they came to the lake, and to Richardson’s, where the 
farmer lived who was also the custodian of the lake. The compla- 
cent horse jogged back, and Condy and Blix set about the serious 
business of the day. Condy had no need to show Richardson the 
delightful sporting clerk’s card. The old Yankee — his twang and 
dry humor singularly incongruous on that royal morning — was so- ■ 
licitude itself. He picked out the best boat on the beach for them, 
loaned them his own anchor of railroad iron, indicated minutely the 
point on the opposite shore off which the last big trout had been 
“killed,” and wetted himself to his ankles as he pushed off the boat. 

Condy took the oars. Blix sat in the stern, jointing the rods 
and running the lines through the guides. She even baited the 
hooks with the salt shrimp herself, and by nine o’clock they were 
at anchor some forty feet off shore, and fishing, according to Rich- 
ardson’s advice, “a leetle mite off the edge o’ the weeds.” 

“If we don’t get a bite the whole blessed day,” said Condy, as 
he paid out his line to the ratchet music of the reel, “we’ll have fun 
just the same. Look around — isn’t this great?” 

They were absolutely alone. The day was young yet. The 
lake, smooth and still as gray silk, widened to the west and south 
without so much as a wrinkle to roughen the surface. Only to the 
east, where the sun looked over a shoulder of a higher hill, it 
flamed up into a blinding diamond iridescence. The surrounding 
land lay between sky and water, hushed to a Sunday stillness. Far 
off across the lake by Richardson’s they heard a dog bark, and the 
sound came fine and small and delicate. At long intervals the boat 
stirred with a gentle clap-clapping of the water along its sides. 
From the nearby shore in the growth of manzanita bushes quail 
called and clucked comfortably to each other; a bewildered yellow 
butterfly danced by over their heads, and slim blue dragon-flies came 
and poised on their lines and fishing-rods, bowing their backs. 


6o 


Blix 


From his seat in the bow, Condy cast a glance at Blix. She was 
holding her rod in both hands, absorbed, watchful, very intent. She 
was as trim as ever, even in the old clothes she had worn for the 
occasion. Her round, strong neck was as usual swathed high and 
tight in white, and the huge dog-collar girdled her waist accord- 
ing to her custom. She had taken off her hat. Her yellow hair 
rolled back from her round forehead and cool pink cheeks like 
a veritable nimbus, and for the fiftieth time Condy remarked the 
charming contrast of her small, deep-brown eyes in the midst of this 
white satin, yellow hair, white skin, and exquisite pink cheeks. 

An hour passed. Then two. 

“No fish, ,, murmured Condy, drawing in his line to examine the 
bait. But, as he was fumbling with the flies he was startled by a 
sharp exclamation from Blix. 

“Oh-Condy-I’ve-got-a-bite !” 

He looked up just in time to see the tip of her rod twitch, twitch, 
twitch. Then the whole rod arched suddenly, the reel sang, the line 
tautened and cut diagonally through the water. 

“You got him ! you got him !” he shouted, palpitating with ex- 
citement. “And he’s a good one !” 

Blix rose, reeling in as rapidly as was possible, the butt of 
the twitching, living rod braced against her belt. All at once the 
rod straightened out again, the strain was released, and the line 
began to slant rapidly away from the boat. 

“He’s off!” she cried. 

“Off, nothing ! He's going to jump. Look out for him, now !” 

And then the two watching from the boat, tense and quivering 
with the drama of the moment, saw that most inspiriting of sights 
— the “break” of a salmon-trout. Up he went, from a brusque 
explosion of ripples and foam — up into the gray of the morning 
from out the gray ,of the water : scales all gleaming, hackles all 
a-bristle; a sudden flash of silver, a sweep as of a scimitar in gray 
smoke, with a splash, a turmoil, an abrupt burst of troubled sound 
that stabbed through the silence of the morning, and in a single in- 
stant dissipated all the placid calm of the previous hours. 

“Keep the line taut,” whispered Condy, gritting his teeth. 
“When he comes toward you, reel him in; an’ if he pulls too hard, 
give him his head.” 

Blix was breathing fast, her cheeks blazing, her eyes all alight. 

“Oh,” she gasped, “I’m so afraid I’ll lose him! Oh, look at 
that!” she cried, as the trout darted straight for the bottom, bend- 


Blix 6 1 

ing the rod till the tip was submerged. “Condy, I’ll lose him— 
I know I shall ; you, you take the rod !” 

“Not for a thousand dollars! Steady, there; he’s away again! 
Oh, talk about sport!” 

Yard by yard Blix reeled in until they began to see the silver 
glint of the trout’s flanks through the green water. She brought 
him nearer. Swimming parallel with the boat, he was plainly visible 
from his wide-opened mouth — the hook and fly protruding from his 
lower jaw — to the red, quivering flanges of the tail. His sides 
were faintly speckled, his belly white as chalk. He was almost 
as long as Condy’s forearm. 

“Oh, he’s a beauty! Oh, isn’t he a beauty!’’ murmured Condy. 
“Now, careful, careful ; bring him up to the boat where I can reach 
him ; e-easy, Blix. If he bolts again,' let him run.” 

Twice the trout shied from the boat’s shadow, and twice, as 
Blix gave him his head, the reel sang and hummed like a watch- 
man’s rattle. But the third time he came to the surface and turned 
slowly on his side, the white belly and one red fin out of the water, 
the gills opening and shutting. He was tired out. A third time 
Blix drew him gently to the boat’s side. Condy reached out and 
down into the water till his very shoulder was wet, hooked two 
fingers under the distended gills, and with a long, easy movement 
of the arm swung him into the boat. 

Their exultation was that of veritable children. Condy whooped 
like an Apache, throwing his hat into the air; Blix was hardly 
articulate, her hands clasped, her hair in disarray, her eyes swim- 
ming with tears of sheer excitement. They shook each other’s 
hands; they talked wildly at the same time; they pounded on the 
boat’s thwarts with their fists ; they laughed at their own absurdity ; 
they looked at the trout again and again, guessed at his weight, 
and recalled to each other details of the struggle. 

“When he broke that time, wasn’t it grand ?” 

“And when I first felt him bite! It was so sudden — why, it 
actually frightened me. I never — no, never in my life !” exclaimed 
Blix, “was so happy as I am at this moment. Oh, Condy, to think 
— just to thin'k !” 

“Isn’t it glory hallelujah?” 

“Isn’t it better than teas, and dancing, and functions?” 

“Blix — how old are we?” 

“I don’t care how old we are ; I think that trout will weigh two 
pounds.” 


62 


Blix 


When they were calm again, they returned to tfreir fishing. The 
morning passed, and it was noon before they were aware of it. By 
half-past twelve Blix had caught three trout, though the first was 
by far the heaviest. Condy had not had so much as a bite. At one 
o’clock they rowed ashore and had lunch under a huge live-oak in a 
little amphitheatre of manzanita. 

Never had a lunch tasted so delicious. What if the wine was 
warm and the stuffed olives oily? What if the pepper for the hard- 
boiled eggs had sifted all over the “devilish” ham sandwiches? 
What if the eggs themselves had not been sufficiently cooked, and 
the corkscrew forgotten? They could not be anything else but in- 
ordinately happy, sublimely gay. Nothing short of actual tragedy 
could have marred the joy of that day. 

But after they were done eating, and Blix had put away the 
forks and spoons, and while Condy was stretched upon his back 
smoking a cigar, she said to him : 

“Now, Condy, what do you say to a little game of cards with me?” 

The cigar dropped from Condy’s lips, and he sat suddenly up- 
right, brushing the fallen leaves from his hair. Blix had taken a 
deck of cards from the lunch-basket, and four rolls of chips wrapped 
in tissue paper. He stared at her in speechless amazement. 

“What do you say?” she repeated, looking at him and smiling. 

“Why, Blix!” he exclaimed in amazement, “what do you mean?” 

“Just what. I say. I want you to play cards with me.” 

“I’ll not to do it,” he declared, almost coldly. 

“Listen to me, Condy,” answered Blix; and for quite five min- 
utes, while he interrupted and protested and pshawed and argued, 
she talked to him calmly and quietly. 

“I don’t ask you to stop playing, Condy,” she said, as she fin- 
ished; “I just ask you that when you feel you must play — or — I 
mean, when you want to very bad, you will come and play with 
me, instead of playing at your club.” 

“But it’s absurd, it’s preposterous. I hate to see a girl gam- 
bling — and you of all girls !” 

“It’s no worse for me than it is for you and — well, do you sup- 
pose I would play with any one else? Maybe you think I can’t 
play well enough to make it interesting for you,” she said gayly. 
“Is that it ? I can soon show you, Condy Rivers — never mind when 
I learned how.” 

“But, Blix, you don’t know how often we play, those men and 
I. Why, it is almost every — you don’t know how often we play.” 


Blix 


63 

“Condy, whenever you want to play, and will play with me, no 
matter what I’ve got in hand, I’ll stop everything and play with 
you.” 

“But why?” 

“Because I think, Condy, that this way perhaps you won’t play 
quite so often at first; and then little by little perhaps — perhaps — 
well, never mind that now. / want to play ; put it that way. But I 
want you to promise me never to play with any one else — say 
for six months.” 

And in the end, whipped by a sense of shame, Condy made her 
the promise. They became very gay upon the instant. 

“Hoh !” exclaimed Condy; “what do you know of poker? I 
think we had best play old sledge or cassino.” 

Blix had dealt a hand and partitioned the chips. 

“Straights and flushes before the draw,” she announced calmly. 

Condy started and stared; then, looking at her askance, picked 
up his hand. 

“It’s up to you.” 

“I’ll make it five to play.” 

“Five? Very well. How many cards?” 

“Three.” 

“I’ll take two.” 

“Bet you five more.” 

Blix looked at her hand. Then, without trace of expression in 
her voice or face, said : 

“There’s your five, and I'll raise you five.” 

“Five better.” 

“And five better than that.” 

“Call you.” 

“Full house. Aces on tens,” said Blix, throwing down her cards. 

“Heavens ! they’re good as gold,” muttered Condy as Blix gath- 
ered in the chips. 

An hour later she had won all the chips but five. 

“Now we’ll stop and get to fishing again; don’t you want to?” 

He agreed, and she counted the chips. 

“Condy, you owe me seven dollars and a half,” she announced. 

Condy began to smile. “Well,” he said jocosely, “I’ll send you 
around a check to-morrow.” 

But at this Blix was cross upon the instant. “You wouldn’t do 
that — wouldn’t talk that way with one of your friends at the club!” 
she exclaimed ; “and it’s not right to do it with me. Condy, give me 


Blix 


64 

seven dollars and a half. When you play cards with me it’s just as 
though it were with another man. I would have paid you if you had 
won.” 

'‘But I haven't got more than nine dollars. Who’ll pay for the 
supper to-night at Luna’s, and our railroad fare going home ?” 

“I’ll pay.” 

“But I — I can’t afford to lose money this way.” 

“Shouldn’t have played, then. I took the same chances as you. 
Condy, I want my money.” 

“You — you — why you’ve regularly flimflammed me.” 

“Will you give me my money?” 

“Oh, take your money then !” 

Blix shut the money in her purse, and rose, dusting her dress. 

“Now,” she said — “now that the pastime of card-playing is over, 
we will return to the serious business of life, which is the catching — 
no, ‘ killing ’ of lake trout.” 

At five o’clock in the afternoon, Condy pulled up the anchor 
of railroad iron and rowed back to Richardson’s. Blix had six 
trout to her credit, but Condy’s ill-luck had been actually ludicrous. 

“I can hold a string in the water as long as anybody,” he com- 
plained, “but I’d like to have the satisfaction of merely changing 
the bait occasionally. I’ve not had a single bite — not a nibble, 
y’ know, all day. Never mind, you got the big trout, Blix ; that first 
one. That five minutes was worth the whole day. It’s been glorious, 
the whole thing. We’ll come down here once a week right along 
now.” 

But the one incident that completed the happiness of that wonder- 
ful day occurred just as they were getting out of the boat on the 
shore by Richardson’s. In a mud-hole between two rocks they dis- 
covered a tiny striped snake, hardly bigger than a lead pencil, in 
the act of swallowing a little green frog, and they passed a rapt 
ten minutes in witnessing the progress of this miniature drama, 
which culminated happily in the victim’s escape, and triumph of 
virtue. 

“That,” declared Blix as they climbed into the old buggy which 
was to take them to the train, “was the one thing necessary. That 
made the day perfect.” 

They reached the city at dusk, and sent their fish, lunch-basket, 
and rods up to the Bessemers’ flat by a messenger boy with an ex- 
planatory note for Blix’s father. 

“Now,” said Condy, “for Luna’s and the matrimonial objects.” 


Blix 


65 


VII 

Luna's Mexican restaurant has no address. It is on no particu- 
lar street, at no particular corner; even its habitues, its most en- 
thusiastic devotees, are unable to locate it upon demand. It is 
“over there in the quarter,” “not far from the cathedral there.” 
One could find it if one started out with that intent; but to direct 
another there — no, that is out of the question. It can be reached 
by following the alleys of Chinatown. You will come out of the last 
alley — the one where the slave girls are — upon the edge of the Mexi- 
can quarter, and by going straight forward a block or two and by 
keeping a sharp lookout to right and left you will hit upon it. It is 
always to be searched for. Always to be discovered. 

On that particular Monday evening Blix and Condy arrived 
at Luna's some fifteen minutes before seven. Condy had lost him- 
self and all sense of direction in the strange streets of the quarter, 
and they were on the very brink of despair when Blix discovered 
the sign upon an opposite corner. 

As Condy had foretold, they had the place to themselves. They 
went into the back room with its one mirror, six tables, and as- 
tonishing curtains of Nottingham lace ; and the waiter, whose name 
was Richard or Riccardo, according to taste, began to officiate at 
the solemn rites of the “supper Mexican.” Condy and Blix ate 
with their eyes continually wandering to the door; and as the 
frijoles were being served, started simultaneously and exchanged 
glances. 

A man wearing two marguerites in the lapel of his coat had 
entered abruptly, and sat down to a table close at hand. 

Condy drew a breath of suppressed excitement. 

“There he is,” he whispered — “Captain Jack !” 

They looked at the newcomer with furtive anxiety, and told them- 
selves that they were disappointed. For a retired sea captain he was 
desperately commonplace. His hair was red, he was younger than 
they had expected, and, worst of all, he did look tough. 

“Oh, poor K. D. B. !” sighed Blix, shaking her head. “He’ll 
never do, I’m afraid. Perhaps he has a good heart, though; red- 
headed people are sometimes affectionate.” 


66 


Blix 


“They are impulsive/’ hazarded Condy. 

As he spoke the words, a second man entered the little room. 
He, too, sat down at a nearby table. He, too, ordered the “supper 
Mexican.” He, too, wore marguerites in his buttonhole. 

“Death and destruction !” gasped Condy, turning pale. 

Blix collapsed helplessly in her chair, her hands dropping in her 
lap. They stared at each other in utter confusion. 

“Here’s a how-do-you-do,” murmured Condy, pretending to 
strip a tamale that Richard had just set before him. But Blix had 
pushed hers aside. 

“What does it mean?” whispered Condy across the table. “In 
Heaven’s name, what does it mean?” 

“It can only mean one thing,” Blix declared ; “one of them is the 
captain, and one is a coincidence. Anybody might wear a mar- 
guerite; we ought to have thought of that.” 

“But which is which?” 

“If.K. D. B. should come now!” 

“But the last man looks more like the captain.” 

The last man was a sturdy, broad-shouldered fellow, who might 
have been forty. His heavy mustache was just touched with gray, 
and he did have a certain vaguely “sober and industrious” appear- 
ance. But the difference between the two men was slight, after all ; 
the red-headed man could easily have been a sea captain, and he 
certainly was over thirty-five. 

“Which? which? which? — how can we tell? We might think of 
some way to get rid of the coincidence, if we could only tell which 
the coincidence was. We owe it to K. D. B. In a way, Condy, it’s 
our duty. We brought her here, or we are going to, and we ought 
to help her all we can ; and she may be here at any moment. What 
time is it now ?” 

“Five minutes after seven. But, Blix, I should think the right 
one — the captain — would be all put out himself by seeing another 
chap here wearing marguerites. Does either one of ’em seem put 
out to you ? Look. I should think the captain, whichever one he is, 
would kind of glare at the coincidence.” 

Stealthily they studied the two men for a moment. 

“No. no,” murmured Blix, “you can’t tell. Neither of them seems 
to glare much. Oh, Condy” — her voice dropped to a faint whisper. 
“The red-headed one has put his hat on a chair, just behind him, 
notice? Do you suppose if you stood up you could see inside?” 

“What good would that do?” 


Blix 67 

“He might have his initials inside the crown, or his whole name 
even ; and you could see if he had a ‘captain’ before it.” 

Condy made a pretence of rising to get a match in a ribbed, 
truncated cone of china that stood upon an adjacent table, and Blix 
held her breath as he glanced down into the depths of the hat. He 
resumed his seat. 

“Only initials,” he breathed — “W. J. A. It might be Jack, that 
J., and it might be Joe, or Jeremiah, or Joshua; and even if he was 
a captain he might not use the title. We’re no better off than we 
were before.” 

“And K. D. B. may come at any moment. Maybe she has come 
already and looked through the windows, and saw two men with 
marguerites and went away. She’d be just that timid. What can we 
do?” 

“Wait a minute, look here,” murmured Condy. “I’ve an idea. 
ril find out which the captain is. You see that picture, that chromo, 
on the wall opposite?” 

Blix looked as he indicated. The picture was a gorgeously 
colored lithograph of a pilot-boat, schooner-rigged, all sails set, 
dashing bravely through seas of emerald green color. 

“You mean that schooner?” asked Blix. 

“That schooner, exactly. Now, listen. You ask me in a loud 
voice what kind of a boat that is ; and when I answer, you keep your 
eye on the two men.” 

“Why, what are you going to do?” 

“You’ll see. Try it now; we’ve no time to lose.” 

Blix shifted in her seat and cleared her throat. Then : 

“What a pretty boat that is up there, that picture on the wall. 
See over there, on the wall opposite? Do you notice it? Isn’t she 
pretty? Condy, tell me what kind of a boat is that?” 

Condy turned about in his place with great deliberation, fixed the 
picture with a judicial eye, and announced decisively: 

“That? — why, that’s a barkentine .” 

Condy had no need to wait for Blix’s report. The demonstration 
came far too quickly for that. The red-headed man at his loud 
declaration merely glanced in the direction of the chromo and re- 
turned to his enchellados. But he of the black mustache followed 
Condy’s glance, noted the picture of which he spoke, and snorted 
contemptuously. They even heard him mutter beneath his mus- 
tache : 

“Barkentine your eye!” 


68 


Blix 


“No doubt as to which is the captain now/’ whispered Condy so 
soon as the other had removed from him a glance of withering 
scorn. 

They could hardly restrain their gayety ; but their gravity prompt- 
ly returned when Blix kicked Condy’s foot under the table and 
murmured: “He’s looking at his watch, the captain is. K. D. B. 
isn’t here yet, and the red-headed man, the coincidence, is. We 
must get rid of him. Condy, can’t you think of something?” 

“Well, he won’t go till he’s through his supper, you can depend 
upon that. If he’s here when K. D. B. arrives, it will spoil every- 
thing. She wouldn’t stay a moment. She wouldn’t even come in.” 

“Isn’t it disappointing? And I had so counted upon bringing 
these two together! And Captain Jack is a nice man!” 

“You can see that with one hand tied behind you,” whispered 
Condy. “The other chap’s tough.” 

“Looks just like the kind of man to get into jail sooner or later.” 

“Maybe he’s into some mischief now ; you never can tell. And 
the Mexican quarter of San Francisco is just the place for ‘affairs.’ 
I’ll warrant he’s got pals” 

“Well, here he is — that’s the main point — just keeping those 
people apart, spoiling a whole romance. Maybe ruining their lives. 
It’s quite possible; really it is. Just stop and think. This is a 
positive crisis we’re looking at now.” 

“Can’t we get rid of him somehow ?” 

“O-oh!” whispered Blix, all at once, in a quiver of excitement. 
“There is a way, if we’d ever have the courage to do it. It might 
work; and if it didn’t, he’d never know the difference, never would 
suspect us. Oh! but we wouldn’t dare.” 

“What? what? In Heaven’s name what is it, Blix?” 

“We wouldn’t dare — we couldn’t. Oh! but it would be such — ” 

“K. D. B. may come in that door at any second.” 

“I’m half afraid, but all the same — Condy, let me have a pencil.” 
She dashed off a couple of lines on the back of the bill of fare, and 
her hand trembled like a leaf as she handed him what she had 
written. 

“Send him — the red-headed man — that telegram. There’s an 
office just two doors below here, next the drug-store. I saw it as 
we came by. You know his initials ; remember, you saw them in his 
hat. W. J. A., Luna’s restaurant. That’s all you want.” 

“Lord,” muttered Condy, as he gazed upon what Blix had written. 

“Do you dare?” she whispered, with a little hysterical shudder. 


Blix 


69 


“If it failed we’ve nothing to lose.” 

“And K. D. B. is coming nearer every instant !” 

“But would he go — that is, at once?” 

“We can only try. You won’t be gone a hundred seconds. You 
can leave me here that length of time. Quick, Condy ; decide one 
way or the other. It’s getting desperate.” 

Condy reached for his hat. 

“Give me some money, then,” he said. “You won all of mine ” 

A few moments later he was back again, and the two sat, pre- 
tending to eat their chili peppers, their hearts in their throats, hardly 
daring to raise their eyes from their plates. Condy was actually 
sick with excitement, and all but tipped the seltzer bottle to the floor 
when a messenger boy appeared in the outer room. The boy and 
the proprietor held a conference over the counter. Then Richard 
appeared between the portieres of Nottingham lace, the telegram in 
his hand and the boy at his heels. 

Evidently Richard knew the red-headed man, for he crossed over 
to him at once with the words : 

“I guess this is for you, Mr. Atkins?” 

He handed him the despatch and retired. The red-headed man 
signed the receipt; the boy departed. Blix and Condy heard the 
sound of torn paper as the red-headed man opened the telegram. 

Ten seconds passed, then fifteen, then twenty. There was a 
silence. Condy dared to steal a glance at the red-headed man’s re- 
flection in the mirror. He was studying the despatch, frowning 
horribly. He put it away in his pocket, took it out again with a 
fierce movement of impatience, and consulted it a second time. His 
“supper Mexican” remained untasted before him; Condy and Bli-x 
heard him breathing loud through his nose. That he was pro- 
foundly agitated, they could not doubt for a single moment. All at 
once a little panic terror seemed to take possession of him. He rose, 
seized his hat, jammed it over his ears, slapped a half-dollar upon 
the table, and strode from the restaurant. 

This is what the read-headed man had read in the despatch ; this 
is what Blix had written: 

“All is discovered. Fly at once." 

And never in all their subsequent rambles about the city did Blix 
or Condy set eyes upon the red-headed man again, nor did Luna’s 
restaurant, where he seemed to have been a habitue, ever afterward 
know his presence. He disappeared ; he was swallowed up. He had 


Blix 


70 

left the restaurant, true. Had he also left that neighborhood? Had 
he fled the city, the State, the country even? What skeleton in the 
red-headed man’s closet had those six words called to life and the 
light of day. Had they frightened him forth to spend the rest of his 
days fleeing from an unnamed, unknown avenger — a veritable wan- 
dering Jew? What mystery had they touched upon there in the 
bald, bare back room of the Quarter’s restaurant? What dark 
door had they opened, what red-headed phantom had they evoked? 
Had they broken up a plot, thwarted a conspiracy, prevented a crime ? 
They never knew. One thing only was certain. The red-headed 
man had had a past. 

Meanwhile the minutes were passing, and K. D. B. still failed 
to appear. Captain Jack was visibly growing impatient, anxious. 
By now he had come to the fiery liqueur called mescal. He was 
nearly through his supper. At every moment he consulted his watch 
and fixed the outside door with a scowl. It was already twenty 
minutes after seven. 

“I know the red-headed man spoiled it, after all,” murmured 
Blix. “K. D. B. saw the two of them in here and was frightened.” 

“We could send Captain Jack a telegram from her,” suggested 
Condy. “I’m ready for anything now.” 

“What could you say?” 

“Oh, that she couldn’t come. Make another appointment.” 

“He’d be offended with her. He’d never make another appoint- 
ment. Sea captains are always so punctilious, y’ know.” 

Richard brought them their coffee and kirsch, and Condy showed 
Blix how to burn a lump of sugar and sweeten the coffee with 
syrup. But they were disappointed. Captain Jack was getting ready 
to leave. K. D. B. had evidently broken the appointment. 

Then all at once she appeared. 

They knew it upon the instant by a brisk opening and shutting of 
the street door, and by a sudden alertness on the part of Captain 
Jack, which he immediately followed by a quite inexplicable move. 
The street door in the outside room had hardly closed before his hand 
shot. to his coat lapel and tore out the two marguerites. 

The action was instinctive; Blix knew it for such immediately. 
The retired captain had not premeditated it. He had not seen the 
face of the newcomer. She had not time to come into the back room, 
or even to close the street door. But the instant that the captain had 
recognized a bunch of white marguerites in her belt he had, without 
knowing why, been moved to conceal his identity. 


Blix 


7i 

“He’s afraid,” whispered Blix. “Positively, I believe he’s afraid. 
How absolutely stupid men are !” 

But meanwhile, K. D. B., the looked-for, the planned-for and 
intrigued-for ; the object of so much diplomacy, such delicate 
manoeuvring ; the pivot upon which all plans were to turn, the storm- 
centre round which so many conflicting currents revolved, and for 
whose benefit the peace of mind of the red-headed man had been 
forever broken up — had entered the room. 

“Why, she’s pretty!” was Blix’s first smothered exclamation, as 
if she had expected a harridan. 

K. D. B. looked like a servant-girl of the better sort, and was 
really very neatly dressed. She was small, little even. She had 
snappy black eyes, a resolute mouth, and a general air of being very 
quiet, very matter-of-fact and complacent. She would be disturbed 
at nothing, excited at nothing; Blix was sure of that. She was 
placid, but it was the placidity not of the absence of emotion, but of 
emotion disdained. Not the placidity of the mollusk, but that of a 
mature and contemplative cat. 

Quietly she sat down at a corner table, quietly she removed her 
veil and gloves, and quietly she took in the room and its three 
occupants. 

Condy and Blix glued their eyes upon their coffee cups like 
guilty conspirators; but a crash of falling crockery called their 
attention to the captain’s table. 

Captain Jack was in a tremor. Hitherto he had acted the role 
of a sane and sensible gentleman of middle age, master of himself 
and of the situation. The entrance of K. D. B. had evidently re- 
duced him to a semi-idiotic condition. He enlarged himself; he 
eased his neck in his collar with a rotary movement of head and 
shoulders. He frowned terribly at trifling objects in corners of the 
room. He cleared his throat till the glassware jingled. He pulled 
at his mustache. He perspired, fumed, fretted, and was suddenly 
seized with an insane desire to laugh. Once only he caught the eye 
of K. D. B., calmly sitting in her corner, picking daintily at her 
fish, whereupon he immediately overturned the vinegar and pepper 
casters upon the floor. Just so might have behaved an overgrown 
puppy in the presence of a sleepy, unperturbed chessy-cat, dozing 
by the fire. 

“He ought to be shaken,” murmured Blix at the end of her 
patience. “Does he think she is going to make the first move?” 

“Ha, ah’m !” thundered the captain, clearing his throat for the 


Blix 


72 

twentieth time, twirling his mustache, and burying his scarlet face in 
an enormous pocket handkerchief. 

Five minutes passed and he was still in his place. From time 
to time K. D. B. fixed him with a quiet, deliberate look, and re- 
sumed her delicate picking. 

“Do you think she knows it’s he, now that he’s taken ofif his 
marguerites?” whispered Condy. 

“Know it? — of course she does! Do you think women are ab- 
solutely blind, or so imbecile as men are? And, then, if she didn’t 
think it was he, she’d go away. And she’s so really pretty, too. 
He ought to thank his stars alive. Think what a fright she might 
have been ! She doesn’t look thirty-one.” 

“Huh!” returned Condy. “As long as she said she was thirty- 
one, you can bet everything you have that she is; that’s as true as 
revealed religion.” 

“Well, it’s something to have seen the kind of people who write 
the personals,” said Blix. “I had always imagined that they were 
kind of tough.” 

“You see they are not,” he answered. “I told you they were not. 
Maybe, however, we have been exceptionally fortunate. At any 
rate, these are respectable enough.” 

“Not the least doubt about that. But why don’t he do some- 
thing, that captain?” mourned Blix. “Why will he act like such 
a ninny?” 

“He’s waiting for us to go,” said Condy ; “I’m sure of it. They’ll 
never meet so long as we’re here. Let’s go and give ’em a chance. 
If you leave the two alone here, one or the other will have to speak. 
The suspense would become too terrible. It would be as though 
they were on a desert island.” 

“But I wanted to see them meet,” she protested. 

“You wouldn’t hear what they said.” 

“But we’d never know if they did meet, and oh — and who spoke 
first?” 

“She’ll speak first,” declared Condy. 

“Never!” returned Blix, in an indignant whisper. 

“I tell you what. We could go and then come back in five 
minutes. I’ll forget my stick here. Savvy?” 

“You would probably do it anyhow,” she told him. 

They decided this would be the better course. They got to- 
gether their things, and Condy neglected his stick, hanging upon a 
hook on the wall. 

1 


Blix 


73 

At the counter in the outside room, Blix, to the stupefaction of 
Richard, the waiter, paid the bill. But as she was moving toward 
the door, Condy called her back. 

“Remember the waiter,” he said severely, while Richard grinned 
and bobbed. “Fifty cents is the very least you could tip him.” 
Richard actually protested, but Condy was firm, and insisted upon 
a half-dollar tip. 

“Noblesse oblige ,” he declared with vast solemnity. 

They walked as far as the cathedral, listened for a moment to 
the bell striking the hour of eight; then as they remembered that 
the restaurant closed at that time, hurried back and entered the 
outside room in feigned perturbation. 

“Did I, could I have possibly left my stick here?” exclaimed 
Condy to Richard, who was untying his apron behind the counter. 
But Richard had not noticed. 

“I think I must have left it back here where we were sitting.” 

Condy stepped into the back room, Blix following. They got 
his stick and returned to the outside room. 

“Yes, yes, I did leave it,” he said, as he showed it to Richard. 
I’m always leaving that stick wherever I go.” 

“Come again,” said Richard, as he bowed them out of the door. 

On the curb outside Condy and Blix shook hands and congratu- 
lated each other on the success of all their labors. In the back room, 
seated at the same table, a bunch of wilting marguerites between 
them, they had seen their “matrimonial objects” conferring ear- 
nestly together, absorbed in the business of getting acquainted. 

Blix heaved a great sigh of relief and satisfaction, exclaiming: 

“At last K. D. B. and Captain Jack have met!” 


VIII 

“But,” she added, as they started to walk, “we will never know 
which one spoke first.” 

But Condy was already worrying. 

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” he murmured anxiously. “Per- 
haps we’ve done an awful thing. Suppose they aren’t happy to- 
gether after they’re married? I wish we hadn’t; I wish we hadn’t 
now. We’ve been playing a game of checkers with human souls. 
We’ve an awful responsibility. Suppose he kills her some time?” 

“Fiddlesticks, Condy! And, besides, if we’ve done wrong with 

D— IV— Norris 


Blix 


74 

our matrimonial objects, we’ve offset it by doing well with our red- 
headed coincidence. How do you know, you may have ‘foiled a 
villain’ with that telegram — prevented a crime?” 

Condy grinned at the recollection of the incident. 

“ ‘Fly at once,’ ” he repeated. “I guess he’s flying yet. ‘All is 
discovered.’ I’d give a dollar and a half — ” 

“If you had it?” 

“Oh, well, if I had it — to know just what it was we have dis- 
covered.” 

Suddenly Blix caught his arm. 

“Condy, here they come !” 

“Who? Who?” 

“Our objects, Captain Jack and K. D. B.” 

“Of course, of course. They couldn’t stay. The restaurant 
shuts up at eight.” 

Blix and Condy had been walking slowly in the direction of 
Pacific Street, and K. D. B. and her escort soon overtook them 
going in the same direction. As they passed, the captain was 
saying : 

“ — jumped on my hatches, and says we’ll make it an interna- 
tional affair. That didn’t — ” 

A passing wagon drowned the sound of his voice. 

“He was telling her of his adventures !” cried Blix. “Splendid ! 
Othello and Desdemona. They’re getting on.” 

“Let’s follow them!” exclaimed Condy. 

“Should we? Wouldn’t it be — indiscreet?” 

“No. We are the arbiters of their fate; we must take an in- 
terest.” 

They allowed their objects to get ahead some half a block and 
then fell in behind. There was little danger of their being detected. 
The captain and K. D. B. were absorbed in each other. She had 
even taken his arm. 

“They make a fine-looking couple, really,” said Blix. “Where 
do you suppose they are going? To another restaurant?” 

But this was not the case. Blix and Condy followed them as far 
as Washington Square, where the Geodetic Survey stone stands, 
and the enormous flagstaff ; and there in front of a commonplace 
little house, two doors above the Russian church with its minarets 
like inverted balloons, K. D. B. and the captain halted. For a few 
moments they conversed in low tones at the gate, then said good- 
night, K. D. B. entering the house, the captain bowing with great 


Blix 


75 

deference, his hat in his hand. Then he turned about, glanced 
once or twice at the house, set his hat at an angle, and disappeared 
across the square, whistling a tune, his chin in the air. 

“Very good, excellent, highly respectable,” approved Blix; and 
Condy himself fetched a sigh of relief. 

“Yes, yes, it might have been worse.” 

“We’ll never see them again, our ‘Matrimonial Objects/ ” said 
Blix, “and they’ll never know about us ; but we have brought them 
together. We’ve started a romance. Yes, I think we’ve done a 
good day’s work. And now, Condy, I think we had best be think- 
ing of home ourselves. I’m just beginning to get most awfully 
sleepy. What a day we’ve had !” 

A sea fog, or rather the sea fog — San Francisco’s old and in- 
separable companion — had gathered by the time they reached the 
top of the Washington Street hill. Everything was wet with it. 
The asphalt was like varnished ebony. Indistinct masses and huge 
dim shadows stood for the houses on either side. From the eucalyp- 
tus trees and the palms the water dripped like rain. Far off, 
oceanward, the fog-horn was lowing like a lost gigantic bull. The 
gray bulk of a policeman — the light from the street lamp re- 
flected in his star — loomed up on the corner as they descended from 
the car. 

Condy had intended to call his diver’s story “A Submarine 
Romance,” but Blix had disapproved. 

“It’s too ‘Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea,’ ” she had 
said. “You want something much more dignified. There is that 
about you, Condy, you like to be too showy; you don’t know when 
to stop. But you have left off red-and-white scarfs, and I am 
very glad to see you wearing white shirt-fronts instead of pink 
ones.” 

“Yes, yes, I thought it would be quieter,” he had answered, 
as though the idea had come from him. Blix allowed him to 
think so. 

But “A Victory Over Death,” as the story was finally called, 
was a success. Condy was too much of a born story-teller not to 
know when he had done something distinctly good. When the story 
came back from the typewriter’s, with the additional strength that 
print lends to fiction, and he had read it over, he could not repress 
a sense of jubilation. The story rang true. 

“Bully, bully !” he muttered between his teeth as he finished the 


Blix 


76 

last paragraph. “It’s a corker! If it’s rejected everywhere, it’s 
an out-of-sight yarn just the same.” 

And there Condy’s enthusiasm in the matter began to dwindle. 
The fine fire which had sustained him during the story's composi- 
tion had died out. He was satisfied with his work. He had written 
a good story, and that was the end of it. No doubt he would send 
it East — to the Centennial Company — to-morrow or the day after 
— some time that week. To mail the manuscript meant quite half 
an hour’s eflfort. He would have to buy stamps for return postage ; 
a letter would have to be written, a large envelope procured, the 
accurate address ascertained. For the moment his supplement work 
demanded his attention. He put off sending the story from day 
to day. His interest in it had abated. And for that matter he soon 
discovered he had other things to think of. 

It had been easy to promise Blix that he would no longer gamble 
at his club with the other men of his acquaintance; but it was 
“death and the devil,” as he told himself, to abide by that prom- 
ise. More than once in the fortnight following upon his resolu- 
tion he had come up to the little flat on the Washington Street hill 
as to a place of refuge; and Blix, always pretending that it was 
all a huge joke and part of their good times, had brought out the 
cards and played with him. But she knew very well the fight he 
was making against the enemy, and how hard it was for him to keep 
from the round green tables and group of silent shirt-sleeved men 
in the card-rooms of his club. She looked forward to the time 
when Condy would cease to play even with her. But she was too 
sensible and practical a girl to expect him to break a habit of years’ 
standing in a couple of weeks. The thing would have to be accom- 
plished little by little. At times she had misgivings as to the hon- 
esty of the course she had adopted. But nowadays, playing as he 
did with her only, Condy gambled but two or three evenings in the 
week, and then not for more than two hours at a time. Hereto- 
fore hardly an evening that had not seen him at the round table in 
his club’s card-room, whence he had not risen until long after 
midnight. 

Condy had told young Sargeant that he had “reformed” in the 
matter of gambling, and intended to swear off for a few months. 
Sargeant, like the thoroughbred he was, never urged him to play 
after that, and never spoke of the previous night’s game when Condy 
was about. The other men of his “set” were no less thoughtful, 
and, though they rallied hiln a little at first upon his defection, soon 


Blix 


77 

let the matter drop. Condy told himself that there were plenty of 
good people in the world, after all. Every one seemed conspiring to 
make it easy for him, and he swore at himself for a weak-kneed 
cad. 

On a certain Tuesday, about a week after the fishing excursion 
and the affair of the “Matrimonial Objects,” toward half-past six 
in the evening, Condy was in his room, dressing for a dinner 
engagement. Young Sargeant’s sister had invited him to be one 
of a party who were to dine at the University Club, and later on 
fill a box at a charity play, given by amateurs at one of the down- 
town theatres. But as he was washing his linen shirt-studs with 
his tooth-brush his eye fell upon a note, in Laurie Flagg's hand- 
writing, that lay on his writing-desk, and that he had received some 
ten days previous. Condy turned cold upon the instant, hurled the 
tooth-brush across the room, and dropped into a chair with a groan 
of despair. Miss Flagg was giving a theatre party for the same 
affair, and he remembered now that he had promised to join her 
party as well, forgetting all about the engagement he had made 
with Miss Sargeant. It was impossible at this late hour to accept 
either one of the young women’s invitations without offending the 
other. 

“Well, I won’t go to either, that’s all,” he vociferated aloud to 
the opposite wall. “I’ll send ’em each a wire, and say that I’m sick 
or have got to go down to the office, and — and, by George?! I’ll go 
up and see Blix, and we’ll read and make things to eat.” 

And no sooner had this alternative occurred to him than it 
appeared too fascinating to be resisted. A weight seemed removed 
from his mind. When it came to that, what amusement would he 
have at either affair? 

“Sit up there with your shirt-front starched like a board,” he 
blustered, “and your collar throttling you, and smile till your face 
is sore, and reel off small talk to a girl whose last name you can’t 
remember! Do I have any fun, does it do me any good, do I get 
ideas for yarns? What do I do it for? I don’t know.” 

While speaking he had been kicking off his tight shoes and such 
of his full dress as he had already put on, and with a feeling of 
enormous relief turned again to his sack suit of tweed. “Lord, 
these feel better!” he exclaimed, as he substituted the loose busi- 
ness suit for the formal rigidity of his evening dress. It was with 
a sensation of positive luxury that he put on a “soft” shirt of blue 
cheviot and his tan walking-shoes. 


Blix 


78 

“But no more red scarfs,” he declared, as he knotted his black 
satin “club” before the mirror. “She was right there.” He put 
his cigarettes in his pocket, caught up his gloves and stick, clapped 
on his hat, and started for the Bessemers’ flat with a feeling of 
joyous expectancy he had not known for days. 

Evidently Blix had seen him coming, for she opened the door 
herself; and it suited her humor for the moment to treat him as a 
peddler or book-agent. 

“No, no,” she said airily, her head in the air as she held the 
door. “No, we don’t want any to-day. We have the biography of 
Abraham Lincoln. Don’t want to subscribe to any Home Book of 
Art. We’re not artistic ; we use drapes in our parlors. Don’t want 
‘The Wives and Mothers of Great Men.’ ” 

But Condy had noticed a couple of young women on the lower 
steps of the adjacent flat, quite within ear-shot, and at once he began 
in a loud, harsh voice: 

“Well, y’ know, we can’t wait for our rent forever; I’m only 
the collector, and I’ve nothing to do with repairs. Pay your rent 
that’s three months overdue, and then — 

But Blix pulled him within the house and clapped to the door. 

“Condy Rivers!” she exclaimed, her cheeks flaming, “those are 
our neighbors. They heard every word. What do you suppose 
they think?” 

“Huh ! I’d rather have ’em think I was a rent-collector than a 
book-agent. You began it. ’Evenin’, Miss Lady.” 

“ ’Evenin’, Mister Man.” 

But Condy’s visit, begun thus gayly, soon developed along much 
more serious lines. After supper, while the light still lasted, Blix 
read stories to him while he smoked cigarettes in the bay window 
of the dining-room. But as soon as the light began to go she put 
the book aside, and the two took their accustomed places in the 
window, and watched the evening burning itself out over the Golden 
Gate. 

It was just warm enough to have one of the windows opened, 
and for a long time after the dusk they sat listening to the vague 
clamor of the city, lapsing by degrees, till it settled into a measured, 
soothing murmur, like the breathing of some vast monster asleep. 
Condy’s cigarette was a mere red point in the half-darkness. The 
smoke drifted out of the open window in long, blue strata. At his 
elbow Blix was leaning forward, looking down upon the darkening, 
drowsing city, her round, strong chin propped upon her hand. 


Blix 


79 

She was just close enough for Condy to catch the sweet, delicious 
feminine perfume that came indefinitely from her clothes, her hair, 
her neck. From where Condy sat he could see the silhouette of 
her head and shoulders against the dull golden blur of the open 
window ; her round, high forehead, with the thick yellow hair roll- 
ing back from her temples and ears, her pink, clean cheeks, her 
little dark-brown, scintillating eyes, and her firm red mouth, made 
all the firmer by the position of her chin upon her hand. As ever, 
her round, strong neck was swathed high and tight in white satin ; 
but between the topmost fold of the satin and the rose of one small 
ear-lobe was a little triangle of white skin, that was partly her neck 
and partly her cheek, and that Condy knew should be softer than 
down, smoother than satin, warm and sweet and redolent as new 
apples. Condy imagined himself having the right to lean toward 
her there and kiss that little spot upon her neck or her cheek ; and 
as he fancied it, was surprised to find his breath come suddenly 
quick, and a barely perceptible qualm, as of a certain faintness, 
thrill him to his finger-tips ; and then, he thought, how would it be 
if he could, without fear of rebuff, reach out his arm and put it 
about her trim, firm waist, and draw her very close to him, till he 
should feel the satiny coolness of her smooth cheek against his; 
till he could sink his face in the delicious, fragrant confusion of 
her hair, then turn that face to his — that face with its strong, calm 
mouth and sweet, full lips — the face of this dear young girl of 
nineteen, and then — 

“I say — I — shall we — let’s read again. Let’s — let’s do some- 
thing.” 

“Condy, how you frightened me!” exclaimed Blix, with a great 
start. “No, listen: I want to talk to you, to tell you something. 
Papum and I have been having some very long and serious talks 
since you were last here. What do you think, I may go away.” 

“The deuce you say!” exclaimed Condy, sitting suddenly up- 
right. “Where to, in Heaven’s name?” he added — “and when? and 
what for?” 

“To New York, to study medicine.” 

There was a silence; then Condy exclaimed, waving his hands 
at her: 

“Oh, go right on ! Don’t mind me. Little thing like going to 
New York — to study medicine. Of course, that happens every 
day, a mere detail. I presume you’ll go back and forth for your 
meals ?” 


8o 


Blix 


Then Blix began to explain. It appeared that she had two 
aunts, both sisters of her father — one a widow, the other unmar- 
ried. The widow, a certain Mrs. Kihm, lived in New York, and 
was wealthy, and had views on “women’s sphere of usefulness.” 
The other, Miss Bessemer, a little old maid of fifty, Condy had on 
rare occasions seen at the flat, where every one called her Aunt 
Dodd. She lived in that vague region of the city known as the 
Mission, where she owned a little property. 

From what Blix told him that evening, Condy learned that Mrs. 
Kihm had visited the coast a few winters previous and had taken a 
great fancy to Blix. Even then she had proposed to Mr. Bessemer 
to take Blix back to New York with her, and educate her to some 
woman’s profession ; but at that time the old man would not listen 
to it. Now it seemed that the opportunity had again presented 
itself. 

“She’s a dear old lady,” Blix said ; “not a bit strong-minded, as 
you would think, and ever so much cleverer than most men. She 
manages all her property herself. For the last month she’s been 
writing again to Papum for me to come on and stay with her three 
or four years. She hasn’t a chick nor a child, and she don’t enter- 
tain or go out any, so maybe she feels lonesome. Of course if I 
studied there, Papum wouldn’t think of Aunt Kihm — don’t you 
know — paying for it all. I wouldn’t go if it was that way. But I 
could stay with her and she could make a home for me while I was 
there — if I should study — anything — study medicine.” 

“But why!” he exclaimed. “What do you want to study to be 
a doctor for? It isn’t as though you had to support yourself.” 

“I know, I know I’ve not got to support myself. But why 
shouldn’t I have a profession just like a man — just like you, Condy? 
You stop and think. It seemed strange to me when I first thought 
of it ; but I got thinking about it and talking it over with Papum, 
and I should love it. I’d do it, not because I would have to do it, 
but because it would interest me. Condy, you know that I’m not a 
bit strong-minded, and that I hate a masculine, unfeminine girl as 
much as you do.” 

“But a medical college, Blix! You don’t know what you are 
talking about.” 

“Yes, I do. There’s a college in New York just for women. 
Aunt Kihm sent me the prospectus, and it’s one of the best in 
the country. I don’t dream of practicing, you know; at least, I 
don’t think about that now. But one must have some occupation ; 


Blix 


8 1 


and isn’t studying medicine, Condy, better than piano-playing, or 
French courses, or literary classes and Browning circles? Oh, I’ve 
no patience with that kind of girl ! And look at the chance I have 
now ; and Aunt Kihm is such a dear ! Think, she writes, I could go 
to and from the college in her coupe every day, and I would see 
New York; and just being in a big city like that is an education.” 

“You’re right, it would be a big thing for you,” assented Condy, 
“and I like the idea of you studying something. It would be the 
making of such a girl as you, Blix.” 

And then Blix, seeing him thus acquiescent, said: 

“Well, it’s all settled ; Papum and I both wrote last night.” 

“When are you going?” 

“The first week in January.” 

“Well, that’s not so awfully soon. But who will take your place 
here? However in the world would your father get along without 
you — and Snooky and Howard?” 

“Aunt Dodd is going to come.” 

“Sudden enough,” said Condy, “but it is a great thing for you, 
Blix, and I’m mighty glad for you. Your future is all cut out for 
you now. Of course your aunt, if she’s so fond of you and hasn’t 
any children, will leave you everything — maybe settle something on 
you right away; and you’ll marry some one of those New York 
chaps, and be great big people before you know it.” 

“The idea, Condy!” she protested. “No; I’m going there to 
study medicine. Oh, you don’t know how enthusiastic I am over 
the idea! I’ve bought some of the first-year books already, and 
have been reading them. Really, Condy, they are even better than 
‘Many Inventions.’ ” 

“Wish I could get East,” muttered Condy gloomily. Blix for- 
got her own good fortune upon the instant. 

“I do so wish you could , Condy!” she exclaimed. “You are 
too good for a Sunday supplement. / know it and you know it, 
and I’ve heard ever so many people who have read your stories 
say the same thing. You could spend twenty years working as you 
are now, and at the end what would you be? Just an assistant 
editor of a Sunday supplement, and still in the same place; and 
worse, you’d come to be contented with th^t, and think you were 
only good for that and nothing better. You’ve got it in you, Condy, 
to be a great story-teller. I believe in you, and I’ve every confidence 
in you. But just so long as you stay here and are willing to do hack 
work, just so long you will be a hack writer. You must break from 


82 


Blix 


it; you must get away. I know you have a good time here; but 
there are so many things better than that and more worth while. 
You ought to make up your mind to get East, and work for that 
and nothing else. I know you want to go, but wanting isn’t enough. 
Enthusiasm without energy isn’t enough. You have enthusiasm, 
Condy; but you must have energy. You must be willing to give up 
things ; you must make up your mind that you will go East, and 
then set your teeth together and do it. Oh, I love a man that can 
do that — make up his mind to a thing and then put it through !” 

Condy watched her as she talked, her brown-black eyes corus- 
cating, her cheeks glowing, her small hands curled into round pink 
fists. 

“Blix, you’re splendid!” he exclaimed; “you’re fine! You could 
put life into a dead man. You’re the kind of girl that are the mak- 
ing of men. By Jove, you’d back a man up, wouldn’t you? You’d 
stand by him till the last ditch. Of course,” he went on after a 
pause — “of course I ought to go to New York. But, Blix, sup- 
pose I went — well, then what? It isn’t as though I had any income 
of my own, or rich aunt. Suppose I didn’t find something to do — 
and the chances are that I wouldn’t for three or four months — what 
would I live on in the meanwhile? ‘What would the robin do then, 
poor thing?’ I’m a poor young man, Miss Bessemer, and I’ve got 
to eat. No; my only chance is ‘to be discovered’ by a magazine or 
a publishing house or somebody, and get a bid of some kind.” 

“Well, there is the Centennial Company. They have taken an 
interest in you, Condy. You must follow that right up and keep 
your name before them all the time. Have you sent them ‘A 
Victory Over Death’ yet ?” 

Condy sat down to his eggs and coffee the next morning in the 
hotel, harried with a certain sense of depression and disappointment 
for which he could assign no cause. Nothing seemed to interest 
him. The newspaper was dull. He could look forward to no pleas- 
ure in his day’s work; and what was the matter with the sun that 
morning? As he walked down to the office he noted no cloud in 
the sky, but the brightness was gone from the day. He sat down 
to his desk and attacked his work, but “copy” would not come. The 
sporting editor and his inane jokes harassed him beyond expression. 
Just the sight of the clipping editor’s back was an irritation. The 
office boy was a mere incentive to profanity. There was no spring 
in Condy that morning, no elasticity, none of his natural buoyancy. 
As the day wore on, his ennui increased; his luncheon at the club 


Blix 83 

was tasteless, tobacco had lost its charm. He ordered a cocktail in 
the wine-room, and put it aside with a wry face. 

The afternoon was one long tedium. At every hour he flung 
his pencil down, utterly unable to formulate the next sentence of 
his article, and, his hands in his pockets, gazed gloomily out of the 
window over the wilderness of roofs — grimy, dirty, ugly roofs that 
spread out below. He craved diversion, amusement, excitement. 
Something there was that he wanted with all his heart and soul; 
yet he was quite unable to say what it was. Something was gone 
from him to-day that he had possessed yesterday, and he knew he 
would not regain it on the morrow, nor the next day, nor the day 
after that. What was it? He could not say. For half an hour he 
imagined he was going to be sick. His mother was not to be at 
home that evening, and Condy dined at his club in the hopes of 
finding some one with whom he could go to the theatre later on in 
the evening. Sargeant joined him over his coffee and cigarette, but 
declined to go with him to the theatre. 

“Another game on to-night?” asked Condy. 

“I suppose so,” admitted the other. 

“I guess I’ll join you to-night,” said Condy. “I’ve had the blue 
devils since morning, and I’ve got to have something to drive them 
off.” 

“Don’t let me urge you, you know,” returned Sargeant. 

“Oh, that’s all right !” Condy assured him. “My time’s about up, 
anyways.” 

An hour later, just as he, Sargeant, and the other men of their 
“set” were in the act of going upstairs to the card-rooms, a hall- 
boy gave Condy a note, at that moment brought by a messenger, 
who was waiting for an answer. It was from Blix. She wrote: 

“Don’t you want to come up and play cards with me to-night? We 
haven’t had a game in over a week?” 

“How did she know?” thought Condy to himself — “how could 
she tell?” Aloud, he said: 

“I can’t join you fellows, after all. 'Despatch from the N man- 
aging editor.’ Some special detail or other.” 

For the first time since the previous evening Condy felt his 
spirits rise as he set off toward the Washington Street hill. But 
though he and Blix spent as merry an evening as they remembered 
in a long time, his nameless, formless irritation returned upon him 
almost as soon as he had bidden her good-night. It stayed with 


Blix 


84 

him all through the week, and told upon his work. As a result, 
three of his articles were thrown out by the editor. 

“We can’t run such rot as that in the paper,” the chief had said. 
“Can’t you give us a story?” 

“Oh, I’ve got a kind of a yarn you can run if you like,” an- 
swered Condy, his week’s depression at its very lowest. 

“A Victory Over Death” was published in the following Sun- 
day’s supplement of the “Times,” with illustrations by one of the 
staff artists. It attracted not the least attention. 

Just before he went to bed the Sunday evening of its appear- 
ance, Condy read it over again for the last time. 

“It’s a rotten failure,” he muttered gloomily as he cast the paper 
from him. “Simple drivel. I wonder what Blix will think of it. 
I wonder if I amount to a hill of beans. I wonder what she wants to 
go East for, anyway.” 


IX 

The old-fashioned Union Street cable car, with its low, com- 
fortable outside seats, put Blix and Condy down just inside the 
Presidio Government Reservation. Condy asked a direction of a 
sentry nursing his Krag- Jorgensen at the terminus of the track, 
and then with Blix set off down the long board walk through the 
tunnel of overhanging evergreens. 

The day could not have been more desirable. It was a little 
after ten of a Monday morning, Condy’s weekly holiday. The air 
was neither cool nor warm, effervescent merely, brisk and full of 
the smell of grass and of the sea. The sky was a speckless sheen 
of pale blue. To their right, and not far off, was the bay, blue as 
indigo. Alcatraz seemed close at hand; beyond was the enormous 
green, red, and purple pyramid of Tamalpais climbing out of the 
water, head and shoulders above the little foothills, and looking 
out to the sea and to the west. 

The Reservation itself was delightful. There were rows of the 
officers’ houses, all alike, drawn up in lines like an assembly of the 
staff ; there were huge barracks, most like college dormitories ; and 
on their porches enlisted men in shirt sleeves and overalls were 
cleaning saddles, and polishing the brass of head-stalls and bridles, 
whistling the while or smoking corn-cob pipes. Here on the 
parade-ground a soldier, his coat and vest removed, was batting 


Blix 


85 

grounders and flies to a half-dozen of his fellows. Over by the 
stables, strings of horses, all of the same color, were being curried 
and cleaned. A young lieutenant upon a bicycle spun silently past. 
An officer came from his front gate, his coat unbuttoned and a briar 
in his teeth. The walks and roads were flanked with lines of black- 
painted cannon-balls; inverted pieces of abandoned ordnance stood 
at corners. From a distance came the mellow snarling of a bugle. 

Blix and Condy had planned a long walk for that day. They 
were to go out through the Presidio Reservation, past the bar- 
racks and officers’ quarters, and on to the old fort at the Golden 
Gate. Here they would turn and follow the shore-line for a way, 
then strike inland across the hills for a short half-mile, and regain 
the city and the street-car lines by way of the golf-links. Condy 
had insisted upon wearing his bicycle outfit for the occasion, and, 
moreover, carried a little satchel, which, he said, contained a pair 
of shoes. 

But Blix was as sweet as a rose that morning, all in tailor- 
made black but for the inevitable bands of white satin wrapped 
high and tight about her neck. The St. Bernard dog-collar did 
duty as a belt. She had disdained a veil, and her yellow hair was 
already blowing about her smooth pink cheeks. She walked at his 
side, her step as firm and solid as his own, her round, strong arms 
swinging, her little brown eyes shining with good spirits and vigor, 
and the pure, clean animal joy of being alive on that fine cool 
Western morning. She talked almost incessantly. She was posi- 
tively garrulous. She talked about the fine day that it was, about the 
queer new forage caps of the soldiers, about the bare green hills of 
the Reservation, about the little cemetery they passed just beyond the 
limits of the barracks, about a rabbit she saw, and about the quail 
they both heard whistling and calling in the hollows under the 
bushes. 

Condy walked at her side in silence, yet no less happy than she, 
smoking his pipe and casting occasional glances at a great ship — 
a four-master that was being towed out toward the Golden Gate. 
At every moment and at every turn they noted things that inter- 
ested them, and to which they called each other’s attention. 

“Look, Blix!” 

“Oh, Condy, look at that !” 

They were soon out of the miniature city of the Post, and held 
on down through the low reach of tules and sand-dunes that stretch 
between the barracks and the old red fort. 


86 


Blix 


“Look, Condy !” said Blix. “What’s that building down there on 
the shore of the bay — the one with the flagstaff?” 

“I think that must be the lifeboat station.” 

“I wonder if we could go down and visit it. I think it would 
be good fun.” 

“Idea!” exclaimed Condy. 

The station was close at hand. To reach it they had but to 
leave the crazy board walk that led on toward the fort, and cross 
a few hundred yards of sand-dune. Condy opened the gate that 
broke the line of evergreen hedge around the little two-story house, 
and promptly unchained a veritable pandemonium of dogs. 

Inside, the place was not without a certain charm of its own. A 
brick wall, bordered with shells, led to the front of the station, 
which gave directly upon the bay ; a little well-kept lawn opened to 
right and left, and six or eight gaily-painted old rowboats were set 
about, half filled with loam in which fuchsias, geraniums, and mi- 
gnonettes were flowering. A cat or two dozed upon the window-sills 
in the sun. Upon a sort of porch overhead, two of the crew paced 
up and down in a manner that at once suggested the poop. Here 
and there was a gleam of highly polished red copper or brass trim- 
mings. The bay was within two steps of the front door, while a 
little further down the beach was the house where the surf-boat was 
kept, and the long runway leading down from it to the water. 
Condy rapped loudly at the front door. It was opened by Cap- 
tain Jack. 

Captain Jack, and no other ; only now he wore a blue sweater and 
a leather-visored cap, with the letters U. S. L. B. S. around the band. 

Not an instant was given them for preparation. The thing had 
happened with the abruptness of a transformation scene at a theatre. 
Condy’s knock had evoked a situation. Speech was stricken from 
their mouths. For a moment they were bereft even of action, and 
stood there on the threshold, staring open-mouthed and open-eyed 
at the sudden reappearance of their “matrimonial object.” Condy 
was literally dumb ; in the end it was Blix who tided them over the 
crisis. 

“We were just going by — just taking a walk,” she explained, 
“and we thought we’d like to see the station. Is it all right? Can 
we look around?” 

“Why, of course,” assented the Captain with great cordiality. 
“Come right in. This is visitors’ day. You just happened to hit it 
— only it’s mighty few visitors we ever have,” he added. 


Blix 


87 

While Condy was registering for himself and Blix, they managed 
to exchange a lightning glance. It was evident the Captain did not 
recognize them. The situation readjusted itself, even promised to be 
of extraordinary interest. And for that matter it made little differ- 
ence whether the captain remembered them or not. 

“No, we don’t get many visitors,” the Captain went on, as he led 
them out of the station and down the small gravel walk to the house 
where the surf-boat was kept. “This is a quiet station. People 
don’t fetch out this way very often, and we’re not called out very 
often, either. We’re an inside post, you see, and usually we don’t get 
a call unless the sea’s so high that the Cliff House station can’t launch 
their boat. So, you see, we don’t go out much, but when we do, it 
means business with a great big B. Now, this here, you see,” con- 
tinued the Captain, rolling back the sliding doors of the house, “is 
the surf-boat. By the way, let’s see; I ain’t just caught your names 
yet.” 

“Well, my name’s Rivers,” said Condy, “and this is Miss Besse- 
mer. We’re both from the city.” 

“Happy to know you, sir ; happy to know you, miss,” he returned, 
pulling off his cap. “My name’s Hoskins, but you can just call me 
Captain Jack. I’m so used to it that I don’t kind of answer to the 
other. Well, now, Miss Bessemer, this here’s the surf-boat; she’s 
self-rightin’, self-bailin’, she can’t capsize, and if I was to tell you 
how many thousands of dollars she cost, you wouldn’t believe me.” 

Condy and Blix spent a delightful half-hour in the boat-house 
while Captain Jack explained and illustrated, and told them anecdotes 
of wrecks, escapes, and rescues till they held their breaths like ten- 
year-olds. 

It did not take Condy long to know that he had discovered what 
the story-teller so often tells of but so seldom finds, and what, for 
want of a better name, he elects to call “a character.” 

Captain Jack had been everywhere, had seen everything, and had 
done most of the things worth doing, including a great many things 
that he had far better have left undone. But on this latter point 
the Captain seemed to be innocently and completely devoid of a 
moral sense of right and wrong. It was quite evident that he saw 
no matter for conscience in the smuggling of Chinamen across the. 
Canadian border at thirty dollars a head — a venture in which he had 
had the assistance of the prodigal son of an American divine of 
international renown. The trade to Peruvian insurgents of con- 
demned rifles was to be regretted only because the ring manipulating 


88 


Blix 


it was broken up. The appropriation of a schooner in the harbor 
of Callao was a story in itself ; while the robbery of thirty thousand 
dollars’ worth of sea-otter skins from a Russian trading-post in 
Alaska, accomplished chiefly through the agency of a barrel of run- 
manufactured from sugar-cane, was a veritable achievement. 

He had been born, so he told them, in Winchester, in England, 
and — Heaven save the mark! — had been brought up with a view of 
taking orders. For some time he was a choir boy in the great Win- 
chester Cathedral; then, while yet a lad, had gone to sea. He 
had been boat-steerer on a New Bedford whaler, and struck his first 
whale when only sixteen. He had filibustered down to Chili ; had 
acted as ice pilot on an Arctic relief expedition; had captained a 
crew of Chinamen shark-fishing in Magdalena Bay, and had been 
nearly murdered by his men; had been a deep-sea diver, and had 
burst his ear-drums at the business, so that now he could blow 
tobacco smoke out of his ears ; he had been shipwrecked in the Gil- 
berts, fought with the Seris on the lower California Islands, sold 
champagne — made from rock candy, effervescent salts, and Reisling 
wine — to the Coreans, had dreamed of “holding up” a Cunard liner, 
and had ridden on the Strand in a hansom with William Ewart 
Gladstone. But the one thing of which he was proud, the one 
picture of his life he most delighted to recall, was himself as manager 
of a negro minstrel troupe, in a hired drum-major’s uniform, march- 
ing down the streets of Sacramento at the head of the brass band in 
burnt cork and regimentals. 

“The star of the troupe,” he told them, “was the lady with the 
iron jore. We busted in Stockton, and she gave me her diamonds 
to pawn. I pawned ’em, and kept back something in the hand for 
myself and hooked it to San Francisco. Strike me straight if she 
didn’t follow me, that iron-jored piece; met me one day in front of 
the Bush Street Theatre, and horsewhipped me properly. Now, 
just think of that” — and he laughed as though it was the best kind 
of a joke. 

“But,” hazarded Blix, “don’t you find it rather dull out here — 
lonesome? I should think you would want to have some one with 
you to keep you company — to — to do your cooking for you?” 

But Condy, ignoring her diplomacy and thinking only of possi- 
ble stories, blundered off upon another track. 

“Yes,” he said, “you’ve led such a life of action, I should think 
this station would be pretty dull for you. How did you happen to 
choose it?” 


Blix 89 

“Well, you see, answered the Captain, leaning against the 
smooth white flank of the surf-boat, his hands in his pockets, “Fm 
lying low just now. I got into a scrape down at Libertad, in 
Mexico, that made talk, and Fm waiting for that to die down some. 
You see, it was this way.” 

Mindful of their experience with the mate of the whaleback, 
Condy and Blix were all attention in an instant. Blix sat down 
upon an upturned box, her elbows on her knees, leaning forward, 
her little eyes fixed and shining with interest and expectation ; 
Condy, the story-teller all alive and vibrant in him, stood at her 
elbow, smoking cigarette after cigarette, his fingers dancing with 
excitement and animation as the Captain spoke. 

And then it was that Condy and Blix, in that isolated station, 
the bay lapping at the shore within ear-shot, in that atmosphere 
redolent of paint and oakum and of seaweed decaying upon the 
beach outside, first heard the story of “In Defiance of Authority.” 

Captain Jack began it with his experience as a restaurant keeper 
during the boom days in Seattle, Washington. He told them how he 
was the cashier of a dining-saloon whose daily net profits exceeded 
eight hundred dollars; how its proprietor suddenly died, and how 
he, Captain Jack, continued the management of the restaurant pend- 
ing a settlement of the proprietor’s affairs and an appearance of heirs ; 
how in the confusion and excitement of the boom no settlement was 
ever made; and how, no heirs appearing, he assumed charge of the 
establishment himself, paying bills, making contracts, and signing 
notes, until he came to consider the business and all its enormous 
profits as his own ; and how at last, when the restaurant was burned, 
he found himself some forty thousand dollars “ahead of the game.” 

Then he told them of the strange club of the place, called “The 
Exiles,” made up chiefly of “younger sons” of English and British- 
Canadian families, every member possessed of a “past” more or 
less disreputable; men who had left their country. for their country’s 
good, and for their family’s peace of mind — adventurers, wanderers, 
soldiers of fortune, gentlemen-vagabonds, men of hyphenated names 
and even noble birth, whose appellations were avowedly aliases. He 
told them of his meeting with Billy Isham, one of the club’s di- 
rectors, and of the happy-go-lucky, reckless, unpractical character 
of the man; of their acquaintance, intimacy, and subsequent part- 
nership; of how the filibustering project was started with Captain 
Jack’s forty thousand, and the never-to-be-forgotten interview in 
San Francisco with Senora Estrada, the agent of the insurgents ; of 


Blix 


90 

the incident of her calling-card — how she tore it in two and gave 
one-half to Isham; of their outfitting, and the broken sextant that 
was to cause their ultimate discomfiture and disaster, and of the 
voyage to the rendezvous on. a Panama liner. 

“Strike me!” continued Captain Tack, “you should have seen 
Billy Isham on that Panama dough-dish; a passenger ship she was, 
and Billy was the life of her from stem to stem-post. There was 
a church pulpit aboard that they were taking down to Mazatlan 
for some chapel or other, and this here pulpit was lashed on deck aft. 
Well, Billy had been most kinds of a fool in his life, and among 
others a play-actor; called himself Gaston Maundeville, and was 
clean daft on his knowledge of Shakespeare and his own power of 
interpretin’ the hidden meanin’ of the lines. I ain’t never going to 
forgit the day he gave us Portia’s speech. We were just under the 
tropic, and the day was a scorcher. There was mostly men folk 
aboard, and we lay around the deck in our pajamas, while Billy — 
Gaston Maundeville, dressed in striped red and white pajamas — 
clum up in that bally pulpit, with the ship’s Shakespeare in his hands, 
an’ let us have — ‘The quality o’ mercy isn’t strained ; it droppeth as 
the genteel dew from heavun.’ Laugh, I tell you I was sore with 
it. Lord, how we guyed him ! An’ the more we guyed and the 
more we laughed, the more serious he got and the madder he grew. 
He said he was interpretin’ the hidden meanin’ of the lines.” 

And so the Captain ran through that wild, fiery tale — of fighting 
and loving, buccaneering and conspiring; mandolins tinkling, knives 
clicking; oaths mingling with sonnets, and spilled wine with spilled 
blood. He told them of Isham’s knife duel with the Mexican lieu- 
tenant, their left wrists lashed together; of the “battle of the 
thirty” in the pitch dark of the Custom House cellar; of Senora 
Estrada’s love for Isham ; and all the roll and plunge of action that 
make up the story of “In Defiance of Authority.” 

At the end, Blix’s little eyes were snapping like sparks ; Condy’s 
face was flaming, his hands were cold, and he was shifting his 
weight from foot to foot, like an excited thoroughbred horse. 

“Heavens and earth, what a yarn!” he exclaimed almost in a 
whisper. 

Blix drew a long, tremulous breath and sat back upon the up- 
turned box, looking around her as though she had but that moment 
been awakened. 

“Yes, sir,” said the Captain, rolling a cigarette. “Yes, sir, those 
were great days. Get down there around the line in those little, 


Blix 


9i 

out-o’-the-way republics along the South American coast, and things 
happen to you. You hold a man’s life in the crook of your fore- 
finger, an’ nothing’s done by halves. If you hate a man, you lay 
awake nights biting your mattress, just thinking how you hate him; 
an’ if you love a woman — good Lord, how you do love her!” 

“But — but!” exclaimed Condy, “I don’t see how you can want to 
do anything else. Why, you’re living sixty to the minute when you’re 
playing a game like that!” 

“Oh, I ain’t dead yet!” answered the Captain. “I got a few 
schemes left that I could get fun out of.” 

“How can you wait a minute!” exclaimed Blix breathlessly. 
“Why don’t you get a ship right away — to-morrow — and go right 
off on some other adventure?” 

“Well, I can’t just now,” returned the Captain, blowing the 
smoke from his cigarette through his ears. “There’s a good many 
reasons ; one of ’em is that I’ve just been married.” 


X 

“Mum — mar — married!” gasped Condy, swallowing some- 
thing in his throat. 

Blix rose to her feet. 

“Just been married!” she repeated, a little frightened. “Why — 
why — why; how delightful!” 

“Yes — yes,” mumbled Condy. “How delightful. I congratu- 
late you!” 

“Come in — come back to the station,” said the Captain jovially, 
“and I’ll introduce you to m’ wife. We were married only last 
Sunday.” 

“Why, yes — yes, of course, we’d be delighted,” vociferated the 
two conspirators a little hysterically. 

“She’s a mighty fine little woman,” declared the Captain, as he 
rolled the door of the boat-house to its place and preceded them up 
the gravel walk to the station. 

“Of course she is,” responded Blix. Behind Captain Jack’s 
back she fixed Condy with a wide-eyed look, and nudged him fiercely 
with an elbow to recall him to himself ; for Condy’s wits were scat- 
tered like a flock of terrified birds, and he was gazing blankly at 
the Captain’s coat collar with a vacant, maniacal smile. 


92 


Blix 


“For Heaven’s sake, Condy!” she had time to whisper before 
they arrived in the hallway of the station. 

But fortunately they were allowed a minute or so to recover 
themselves and prepare for what was coming. Captain Jack 
ushered them into what was either the parlor, office, or sitting-room 
of the station, and left them with the words : 

“Just make yourselves comfortable here, an’ I’ll go fetch the 
little woman.” 

No sooner had he gone than the two turned to each other. 

“Well !” 

“Well!” 

“We’re in for it now.” 

“But we must see it through, Condy; act just as natural as you 
can, and we’re all right.” 

“But supposing she recognizes us !” 

“Supposing she does — what then. How are they to know that 
we wrote the letters ?” 

“Sh, Blix, not so loud ! They know by now that they didn’t.” 

“But it seems that it hasn't made any difference to them ; they 
are married. And besides, they wouldn’t speak about putting ‘per- 
sonals’ in the paper to us. They would never let anybody know that.” 

“Do you suppose they could possibly suspect?” 

“I’m sure they couldn’t.” 

“Here they come.” 

“Keep perfectly calm, and we’re saved.” 

“Suppose it isn’t K. D. B., after all?” 

But it was, of course, and she recognized them in an instant. 
She and the Captain — the latter all grins — came in from the direc- 
tion of the kitchen, K. D. B. wearing a neat blue calico gown and 
an apron that was really a marvel of cleanliness and starch. 

“Kitty!” exclaimed Captain Jack, seized again with an unex- 
plainable mirth, “here’s some young folks come out to see the place, 
an’ I want you to know ’em. Mr. Rivers, this is m’ wife, Kitty, 
and — lessee, miss, I don’t rightly remember your name.” 

“Bessemer !” exclaimed Condy and Blix in a breath. 

“Oh!” exclaimed K. D. B., “you were in the restaurant the 
night that the Captain and I — I — that is — yes, I’m quite sure I’ve 
seen you before.” She turned from one to the other, beginning to 
blush furiously. 

“Yes, yes, in Luna’s restaurant, wasn’t it?” said Condy desper- 
ately. “It seems to me I do just barely remember." 


Blix 


93 


“And wasn’t the Captain there?” Blix ventured. 

“I forgot my stick, I remember,” continued Condy. “I came 
back for it; and just as I was going out it seems to me I saw you 
two at a table near the door.” 

He thought it best to allow their “matrimonial objects” to believe 
he had not seen them before. 

“Yes, yes, we were there,” answered K. D. B. tactfully. “We 
dine there almost every Monday night.” 

Blix guessed that K. D. B. would prefer to have the real facts 
of the situation ignored, and determined she should have the chance 
to change the conversation if she wished. 

“What a delicious supper one has there !” she said. 

“Can’t say I like Mexican cooking myself,” answered K. D. B., 
forgetting that they dined there every Monday night. “Plain 
United States is good enough for me.” 

Suddenly Captain Jack turned abruptly to Condy, exclaiming: 
“Oh, you was the chap that called the picture of that schooner a 
barkentine.” 

“Yes; wasn’t that a barkentine?” he answered innocently. 

“Barkentine your eye!” spluttered the Captain. “Why, that 
was a schooner as plain as a pie plate.” 

But ten minutes later the ordeal was over, and Blix and Condy, 
once more breathing easily, were on their walk again. The Captain 
and K. D. B. had even accompanied them to the gate of the station, 
and had strenuously urged them to “come in and see them again 
the next time they were out that way.” 

“Married!” murmured Condy, putting both hands to his head. 
“We’ve done it, we’ve done it now.” 

“Well, what of it?” declared Blix, a little defiantly. “I think 
it’s all right. You can see the Captain is in love with her, and she 
with him. No, we’ve nothing to reproach ourselves with.” 

“But — but — but so sudden!” whispered Condy, all aghast. 
“That’s what makes me faint — the suddenness of it.” 

“It shows how much they are in love, how — how readily they — 
adapted themselves to each other. No, it’s all right.” 

“They seemed to like us — actually.” 

“Well, they had better — if they knew the truth. Without us 
they never would have met.” 

“They both asked us to come out and see them again, did you 
notice that? Let’s do it, Blix,” Condy suddenly exclaimed; “let’s 
get to know them J” 


94 


Blix 


“Of course we must. Wouldn’t it be fun to call on them — to get 
regularly acquainted with them !” 

“They might ask us to dinner some time.” 

“And think of the stories he could tell you !” 

They enthused immediately upon this subject, both talking ex- 
citedly at the same time, going over the details of the Captain’s 
yarns, recalling the incidents to each other. 

“Fancy!” exclaimed Condy — “fancy Billy Isham in his pajamas, 
red and white stripes, reading Shakespeare from that pulpit on 
board the ship, and the other men guying him! Isn’t that a scene 
for you? Can’t you just see it?” 

“I wonder if the Captain wasn’t making all those things up as 
he went along. He don’t seem to have any sense of right and 
wrong at all. He might have been lying, Condy.” 

“What difference would that make?” 

And so they went along in that fine, clear, Western morning, 
on the edge of the Continent, both of them young and strong and 
vigorous, the Pacific under their eyes, the great clean Trades blow- 
ing in their faces, the smell of the salt sea coming in long aromatic 
whitfs to their nostrils. Young and strong and fresh, their imagina- 
tions thronging with pictures of vigorous action and adventure, 
buccaneering, filibustering, and all the swing, the leap, the rush 
and gallop, the exuberant, strong life of the great, uncharted world 
of Romance. 

And all unknowingly they were a Romance in themselves. Cyni- 
cism, old age, and the weariness of all things done had no place in 
the world in which they walked. They still had their illusions, all 
the keenness of their sensations, all the vividness of their impres- 
sions. The simple things of the world, the great, broad, primal 
emotions of the race stirred in them. As they swung along, going 
toward the ocean, their brains were almost as empty of thought or 
of reflection as those of two fine, clean animals. They were all for 
the immediate sensation; they did not think — they felt. The intel- 
lect was dormant; they looked at things, they heard things, they 
smelled the smell of the sea, and of the seaweed, of the fat, rank 
growth of cresses in the salt marshes; they turned their cheeks to 
the passing wind, and filled their mouths and breasts with it. Their 
life was sweet to them; every hour was one glad effervescence. 
The fact that the ocean was blue was a matter for rejoicing. It 
was good to be alive on that royal morning. Just to be young was 
an exhilaration; and everything was young with them — the day 


Biix 


95 

was young, the country was young, and the civilization to which 
they belonged, teeming there upon the green, Western fringe of the 
continent, was young and heady and tumultuous with the boisterous, 
red blood of a new race. 

Condy even forgot, or rather disdained on such a morning as 
that, to piece together and rearrange Captain Jack’s yarns into story 
form. To look at the sea and the green hills, to watch the pink 
on Blix’s cheek and her yellow hair blowing across her eyes and 
lips, was better than thinking. Life was better than literature. To 
live was better than to read ; one live human being was better than 
ten thousand Shakespeares ; an act was better than a thought. 
Why, just to love Blix, to be with her, to see the sweet, clean flush 
of her cheek, to know that she was there at his side, and to have 
the touch of her elbow as they walked, was better than the best 
story, the greatest novel he could ever hope to write. Life was 
better than literature, and love was the best thing in life. To love 
Blix and to be near her — what else was worth while? Could he 
ever think of finding anything in life sweeter and finer than this 
dear young girl of nineteen ? 

Suddenly Condy came to himself with an abrupt start. What 
was this he was thinking — what was this he was telling himself? 
Love Blix! He loved Blix! Why, of course he loved her — loved 
her so, that with the thought of it there came a great, sudden clutch 
at the heart and a strange sense of tenderness, so vague and yet 
so great that it eluded speech and all expression. Love her! Of 
course he loved her ! He had, all unknowing, loved her even before 
this wonderful morning: had loved her that day at the lake, and 
that never-to-be-forgotten, delicious afternoon in the Chinese 
restaurant; all those long, quiet evenings spent in the window of 
the little dining-room, looking down upon the darkening city, he 
had loved her. Why, all his days for the last few months had been 
full of the love of her. 

How else had he been so happy? how else did it come about 
that little by little he was withdrawing from the society and influ- 
ence of his artificial world, as represented by such men as Sargeant? 
how else was he slowly loosening the grip of the one evil and vicious 
habit that had clutched him so long? how else was his ambition 
stirring? how else was his hitherto aimless enthusiasm hardening 
to energy and determination ? She had not always so influenced 
him. In the days when they had just known each other, and met 
each other in the weekly course of their formal life, it had not 


Blix 


9 6 

been so, even though they pretended a certain amount of affection. 
He remembered the evening when Blix had brought those days to 
an abrupt end, and how at the moment he had told himself that 
after all he had never known the real Blix. Since then, in the 
charming, unconventional life they had led, everything had been 
changed. He had come to know her for what she was, to know 
her genuine goodness, her sincerity, her contempt of affectations, 
her comradeship, her calm, fine strength and unbroken good nature ; 
and day by day, here a little and there a little, his love for her had 
grown so quietly, so evenly, that he had never known it, until now, 
behold! it was suddenly come to flower, full and strong — a flower 
whose fragrance had suddenly filled all his life and all his world 
with its sweetness. 

Half an hour after leaving the lifeboat station, Condy and Blix 
reached the old, red-brick fort, deserted, abandoned, and rime- 
incrusted, at the entrance of the Golden Gate. They turned its 
angle, and there rolled the Pacific, a blue floor of shifting water, 
stretching out there forever and forever over the curve of the 
earth, oyer the shoulder of the world, with never a sail in view and 
never a break from horizon to horizon. 

They followed down the shore, sometimes upon the old and 
broken flume that runs along the seaward face of the hills that rise 
from the beach, or sometimes upon the beach itself, stepping from 
bowlder to bowlder, or holding along at the edge of the water upon 
reaches of white, hard sand. 

The beach was solitary ; not a soul was in sight. Close at hand, 
to landward, great hills, bare and green, shut off the sky ; and here 
and there the land came tumbling down into the sea in great, 
jagged, craggy rocks, knee-deep in swirling foam, and all black 
with wet. The air was full of the prolonged thunder of the surf, 
and at intervals sea-birds passed overhead with an occasional piping 
cry. Wreckage was tumbled about here and there; and innumera- 
ble cocoanut shards, huge, brown cups of fuzzy bark, lay underfoot 
and in the crevices of the rocks. They found a jelly-fish — a pulpy, 
translucent mass ; and once even caught a sight of a seal in the 
hollow of a breaker, with sleek and shining head, his barbels 
bristling, and heard his hoarse croaking bark as he hunted the off- 
shore fish. 

Blix refused to allow Condy to help her in the least. She was 
quite as active and strong as he, and clambered from rock to rock 
and over the shattered scantling of the flume with the vigor and 


Blix 


97 

agility of a young boy. She muddied her shoes to the very tops, 
scratched her hands, tore her skirt, and even twisted her ankle; but 
her little eyes were never so bright, nor was the pink flush of her 
cheeks ever more adorable. And she was never done talking — a 
veritable chatterbox. She saw everything and talked about every- 
thing she saw, quite indifferent as to whether or no Condy listened. 
Now it was a queer bit of seaweed, now it was a group of gulls 
clamoring over a dead fish, now a purple starfish, now a breaker 
of unusual size. Her splendid vitality carried her away. She was 
excited, alive to her very finger-tips, vibrant to the least sensation, 
quivering to the least impression. 

“Let’s get up here and sit down somewhere,” said Condy, at 
length. 

They left the beach and climbed up the slope of the hills, near 
a point where a long arm of land thrust out into the sea and shut 
off the wind; a path was there, and they followed it for a few 
yards, till they had come to a little amphitheatre surrounded with 
blackberry bushes. 

Here they sat down, Blix settling herself on an old log with a 
little sigh of contentment, Condy stretching himself out, a new- 
lighted pipe in his teeth, his head resting on the little handbag he 
had persistently carried ever since morning. Then Blix fell sud- 
denly silent, and for a long time the two sat there without speaking, 
absorbed in the enjoyment of looking at the enormous green hills 
rolling down to the sea, the breakers thundering at the beach, the 
gashed pinnacles of rock, the vast reach of the? Pacific, &.nd 
the distant prospect of the old fort at the entrance of the Golden 
Gate. 

“We might be a thousand miles away from the city, for all the 
looks of it, mightn’t we, Condy?” said Blix, after a while. “And 
I’m that hungry! It must be nearly noon.” 

For answer, Condy sat up with profound gravity, and with a 
great air of nonchalance opened the handbag, and, instead of shoes, 
took out, first, a pint bottle of claret, then “devilish” ham sand- 
wiches in oiled paper, a bottle of stuffed olives, a great bag of salted 
almonds, two little tumblers, a paper-covered novel, and a mouth 
organ. 

Blix fairly crowed with delight, clasping her hands upon her 
knees, and rocking to and fro where she sat upon the log. 

“Oh, Condy, and you thought of a lunch — you said it was shoes 
— and you remembered I loved stuffed olives, too; and a book to 

E— IV— Norris 


Blix 


98 

read. What is it— The Seven Seas.’ No, I never was so happy. 
But the mouth organ — what’s that for?” 

“To play on. What did you think — think it was a can-opener?” 

Blix choked with merriment over his foolery, and Condy added 
proudly : 

“Look there! I made those sandwiches!” 

They looked as though he had — great, fat chunks of bread, the 
crust still on ; the “devilish” ham in thick strata between ; and, posi- 
tively, he had buttered the bread. But it was all one with them; 
they ate as though at a banquet, and Blix even took off her hat and 
hung it upon one of the nearby bushes. Of course Condy had for- 
gotten a corkscrew. He tried to dig out the cork of the claret 
bottle with his knife, until he had broken both blades and was about 
to give up in despair, when Blix, at the end of her patience, took 
the bottle from him and pushed in the cork with her finger. 

“Wine, music, literature, and feasting,” observed Condy. 
“We’re getting regularly luxurious, just like Sardine-apalus.” 

But Condy himself had suddenly entered into an atmosphere of 
happiness, the like of which he had never known or dreamed of 
before. He loved Blix — he had just discovered it. He loved her 
because she was so genuine, so radiantly fresh and strong ; loved her 
because she liked the things that he liked, because they two looked 
at the world from precisely the same point of view, hating shams 
and affectations, happy in the things that were simple and honest 
and natural. He loved her because she liked his books, appreciating 
the things therein that he appreciated, liking what he liked, disap- 
proving of what he condemned. He loved her because she was 
nineteen, and because she was so young and unspoiled and was 
happy just because the ocean was blue and the morning fine. He 
loved her because she was so pretty, because of the softness of her 
yellow hair, because of her round, white forehead and pink cheeks, 
because of her little, dark-brown eyes, with that look in them as 
if she were just done smiling or just about to smile, one could not 
say which; loved her because of her good, firm mouth and chin, 
because of her full neck and its high, tight bands of white satin. 
And he loved her because her arms were strong and round, and 
because she wore the great dog-collar around her trim, firm-cor- 
seted waist, and because there emanated from her with every move- 
ment a barely perceptible, delicious, feminine odor, that was in part 
perfume, but mostly a subtle, vague aroma, charming beyond words, 
that came from her mouth, her hair, her neck, her arms, her whole 


Blix 


99 

sweet personality. And he loved her because she was herself, be- 
cause she was Blix, because of that strange, sweet influence that 
was disengaged from her in those quiet moments when she seemed 
so close to him, when some unnamed, mysterious sixth sense in him 
stirred and woke and told him of her goodness, of her clean purity 
and womanliness ; and that certain, vague tenderness in him went 
out toward her, a tenderness not for her only, but for all the good 
things of the world; and he felt his nobler side rousing up and the 
awakening of the desire to be his better self. 

Covertly he looked at her, as she sat near him, her yellow hair 
rolling and blowing back from her forehead, her hands clasped 
over her knee, looking out over the ocean, thoughtful, her eyes wide. 

She had told him she did not love him. Condy remembered that 
perfectly well. She was sincere in the matter; she did not love 
him. That subject had been once and for all banished from their 
intercourse. And it was because of that very reason that their com- 
panionship of the last three or four months had been so charming. 
She looked upon him merely as a chum. She had not changed in 
the least from that time until now, whereas he — why, all his world 
was new for him that morning! Why, he loved her so, she had 
become so dear to him, that the very thought of her made his heart 
swell and leap. 

But he must keep all this to himself. If he spoke to her, told 
her of how he loved her, it would spoil and end their companion- 
ship upon the instant. They had both agreed upon that; they had 
tried the other, and it had worked out. As lovers they had wearied 
of each other; as chums they had been perfectly congenial, thor- 
oughly and completely happy. 

Condy set his teeth. It was a hard situation. He must choose 
between bringing an end to this charming comradeship of theirs, or 
else fight back all show of love for her, keep it down and under 
hand, and that at a time when every nerve of him quivered like a 
smitten harp-string. It was not in him or in his temperament to 
love her calmly, quietly, or at a distance; he wanted the touch of 
her hand, the touch of her cool, smooth cheek, the delicious aroma 
of her breath in his nostrils, her lips against his, her hair and all its 
fragrance in his face. 

“Condy, what’s the matter?” Blix was looking at him with an 
expression of no little concern. “What are you frowning so about, 
and clinching your fists? And you’re pale, too. What’s gone 
wrong?” 


IOO 


Blix 


He shot a glance at her, and bestirred himself sharply. 

“Isn’t this a jolly little corner?” he said. “Blix, how long is it 
before you go?” 

“Six weeks from to-morrow.” 

“And you’re going to be gone four years — four years ! Maybe 
you never will come back. Can’t tell what will happen in four years. 
Where’s the blooming mouth-organ?” 

But the mouth-organ was full of crumbs. Condy could not play 
on it. To all his efforts it responded only by gasps, mournfulest 
death-rattles, and lamentable wails. Condy hurled it into the sea. 

“Well, where’s the blooming book, then?” he demanded. 
“You’re sitting on it, Blix. Here, read something in it. Open it 
anywhere.” 

“No ; you read to me.” 

“I will not. Haven’t I done enough? Didn’t I buy the book and 
get the lunch, and make the sandwiches, and pay the car-fare? I 
think this expedition will cost me pretty near three dollars before 
we’re through with the day. No; the least you can do is to read 
to me. Here, we’ll match for it.” 

Condy drew a dime from his pocket, and Blix a quarter from 
her purse. 

“You’re matching me ,” she said. 

Condy tossed the coin and lost, and Blix said, as he. picked up 
the book: 

“For a man that has such unvarying bad luck as you, gambling 
is just simple madness. You and I have never played a game of 
poker yet that I’ve not won every cent of money you had.” 

“Yes; and what are you doing with it all?” 

“Spending it,” she returned loftily; “gloves and veils and lace 
pins — all kinds of things.” 

But Condy knew the way she spoke that this was not true. 

For the next hour or so he read to her from “The Seven Seas,” 
while the afternoon passed, the wind stirring the chaparral and black- 
berry bushes in the hollows of the huge, bare hills, the surf rolling 
and grumbling on the beach below, the sea-birds wheeling over- 
head. Blix listened intently, but Condy could not have told of what 
he was reading. Living was better than reading, life was better 
than literature, and his new-found love for her was poetry enough 
for him. He read so that he might not talk to her or look at her, for 
it seemed to him at times as though some second self in him would 
speak and betray him in spite of his best efforts. Never before in 


Blix 


IOI 


all his life had he been so happy; never before had he been so 
troubled. He began to jumble the lines and words as he read, over- 
running periods, even turning two pages at once. 

“What a splendid line!” Blix exclaimed. 

“What line — what — what are you talking about? Blix, let’s al- 
ways remember to-day. Let’s make a promise, no matter what 
happens or where we are, let’s always write to each other on the 
anniversary of to-day. What do you say?” 

“Yes; I’ll promise — and you — ” 

“I’ll promise faithfully. Oh, I’ll never forget to-day nor — yes, 
yes, I’ll promise — why, to-day — Blix — where’s that damn book 
gone ?” 

“Condy!” 

“Well, I can’t find the book. You’re sitting on it again. Con- 
found the book, anyway! Let’s walk some more.” 

“We’ve a long ways to go if we’re to get home in time for sup- 
per. Let’s go to Luna’s for supper.” 

“I never saw such a girl as you to think of ways for spending 
money. What kind of a purse-proud plutocrat do you think I am? 
I’ve only seventy-five cents left. How much have you got?” 

Blix had fifty-five cents in her purse, and they had a grave coun- 
cil over their finances. They had just enough for car-fare and two 
“suppers Mexican,” with ten cents left over.” 

“That’s for Richard’s tip,” said Blix. 

“That’s for my cigar,” he retorted. 

“You made me give him fifty cents. You said it was the least I 
could ofifer him — noblesse oblige.” 

“Well, then, I couldn’t offer him a dime, don’t you see? I’ll tell 
him we are broke this time.” 

They started home, not as they had come, but climbing the hill 
and going across a breezy open down, radiant with blue iris, wild 
heliotrope, yellow poppies, and even a violet here and there. A little 
further on they gained one of the roads of the Reservation, red 
earth smooth as a billiard table; and just at an angle where the road 
made a sharp elbow and trended cityward, they paused for a mo- 
ment and looked down and back at the superb view of the ocean, the 
vast half-moon of land, and the rolling hills in the foreground 
tumbling down toward the beach and all spangled with wild flowers. 

Some fifteen minutes later they reached the golf-links. 

“We can go across the links,” said Condy, “and strike any num- 
ber of car lines on the other side.” 


102 


Blix 


They left the road and struck across the links, Condy smoking 
his new-lighted pipe. But as they came around the edge of a long 
line of eucalyptus trees near the teeing ground, a warning voice 
suddenly called out : 

“Fore!” 

Condy and Blix looked up sharply, and there in a group not 
twenty feet away, in tweeds and “knickers,” in smart, short golfing 
skirts and plaid cloaks, they saw young Sargeant and his sister, two 
other girls whom they knew as members of the fashionable “set,” 
and Jack Carter in the act of swinging his driving iron. 


XI 

As the clock in the library of the club struck midnight, Condy 
laid down his pen, shoved the closely written sheets of paper from 
him, and leaned back in his chair, his fingers to his tired eyes. He 
was sitting at a desk in one of the further corners of the room and 
shut off by a great Japanese screen. He was in his shirt-sleeves, his 
hair was tumbled, his fingers ink-stained, and his face a little pale. 

Since late in the evening he had been steadily writing. Three 
chapters of “In Defiance of Authority” were done, and he was now 
at work on the fourth. The day after the excursion to the Pre- 
sidio — that wonderful event which seemed to Condy to mark the 
birthday of some new man within him — the idea had suddenly oc- 
curred to him that Captain Jack’s story of the club of the exiles, 
the boom restaurant, and the filibustering expedition was precisely 
the novel of adventure of which the Centennial Company had spoken. 
At once he had set to work upon it, with an enthusiasm that, with 
shut teeth, he declared would not be lacking in energy. The story 
would have to be written out of his business hours. That meant 
he would have to give up his evenings to it. But he had done this, 
and for nearly a week had settled himself to his task in the quiet 
corner of the club at eight o’clock, and held to it resolutely until 
twelve. 

The first two chapters had run off his pen with delightful ease. 
The third came harder ; the events and incidents of the story became 
confused and contradictory ; the character of Billy Isham obstinately 
refused to take the prominent place which Condy had designed for 
him ; and with the beginning of the fourth chapter, Condy had finally 
come to know the enormous difficulties, the exasperating compli- 


Blix 


103 

cations, the discouragements that begin anew with every paragraph, 
the obstacles that refuse to be surmounted, and all the pain, the 
labor, the downright mental travail and anguish that fall to the lot 
of the writer of novels. 

To write a short story with the end in plain sight from the 
beginning was an easy matter compared to the upbuilding, grain by 
grain, atom by atom, of the fabric of “In Defiance of Authority/’ 
Condy soon found that there was but one way to go about the busi- 
ness. He must shut his eyes to the end of his novel — that far-off, 
divine event — and take his task chapter by chapter, even paragraph 
by paragraph ; grinding out the tale, as it were, by main strength, 
driving his pen from line to line, hating the effort, happy only with 
the termination of each chapter, and working away, hour by hour, 
minute by minute, with the dogged, sullen, hammer-and-tongs ob- 
stinacy of the galley-slave, scourged to his daily toil. 

At times the tale, apparently out of sheer perversity, would come 
to a full stop. To write another word seemed beyond the power of 
human ingenuity, and for an hour or more Condy would sit scowling 
at the half-written page, gnawing his nails, scouring his hair, dip- 
ping his pen into the ink-well, and squaring himself to the sheet of 
paper, all to no purpose. 

There was no pleasure in it for him. A character once fixed in 
his mind, a scene once pictured in his imagination, and even before 
he had written a word the character lost the charm of its novelty, 
the scene the freshness of its original conception. Then, with in- 
finite painstaking and with a patience little short of miraculous, he 
must slowly build up, brick by brick, the plan his brain had out- 
lined in a single instant. It was all work — hard, disagreeable, la- 
borious work; and no juggling with phrases, no false notions as to 
the “delight of creation,” could make it appear otherwise. “And for 
what,” he muttered as he rose, rolled up his sheaf of manuscript, and 
put on his coat ; “what do I do it for, I don’t know.” 

It was beyond question that, had he begun his novel three 
months before this time, Condy would have long since abandoned 
the hateful task. But Blix had changed all that. A sudden male 
force had begun to develop in Condy. A master-emotion had shaken 
him, and he had commenced to see and to feel the serious, more 
abiding, and perhaps the sterner side of life. Blix had steadied him, 
there was no denying that. He was not quite the same boyish, 
hairbrained fellow who had made “a buffoon of himself” in the 
Chinese restaurant, three months before. 


Blix 


104 

The cars had stopped running by the time Condy reached the 
street. He walked home and flung himself to bed, his mind tired, 
his nerves unstrung, and all the blood of his body apparently con- 
centrated in his brain. Working at night after writing all day long 
was telling upon him, and he knew it. 

What with his work and his companionship with Blix, Condy 
soon began to drop out of his wonted place in his “set.” He was 
obliged to decline one invitation after another that would take him 
out in the evening, and instead of lunching at his club with Sar- 
geant or George Hands, as he had been accustomed to do at one 
time, he fell into another habit of lunching with Blix at the flat on 
Washington Street, and spending the two hours allowed to him in 
the middle of the day in her company. 

Condy’s desertion of them was often spoken of by the men of his 
club with whom he had been at one time so intimate, and the sub- 
ject happened to be brought up again one noon when Jack Carter 
was in the club as George Hands’ guest. Hands, Carter, and 
Eckert were at one of the windows over their after-dinner cigars 
and liqueurs. 

“I say,” said Eckert suddenly, “who’s that girl across the street 
there — the one in black, just going by that furrier’s sign? I’ve seen 
her somewhere before. Know who it is?” 

“That’s Miss Bessemer, isn’t it?” said George Hands, leaning 
.forward. “Rather a stunning-looking girl.” 

“Yes, that’s Travis Bessemer,” assented Jack Carter; adding, a 
moment later, “it’s too bad about that girl.” 

“What’s the matter ?” asked Eckert. 

Carter lifted a shoulder. “Isn’t anything the matter as far as I 
know, only somehow the best people have dropped her. She used 
to be received everywhere.” 

“Come to think, 1 haven't seen her out much this season,” said 
Eckert. “But I heard she had bolted from ‘Society’ with the big S, 
and was going East — going to study medicine, I believe.” 

“I’ve always noticed,” said Carter, with a smile, “that so soon 
as a girl is declassee , she develops a purpose in life, and gets earnest, 
and all that sort of thing.” 

“Oh, well, come,” growled George Hands, “Travis Bessemer 
is not declassee 

“I didn’t say she was,” answered Carter ; “but she has made her- 
self talked about a good deal lately. Going around with Rivers, 
as she does, isn’t the most discreet thing in the world. Of course, 


Blix 


105 

it’s all right, but it all makes talk, and I came across them by a 
grove of trees out on the links the other day — ” 

“Yes,” observed Sargeant, leaning on the back of Carter’s arm- 
chair ; “yes ; and I noticed, too, that she cut you dead. You fellows 
should have been there,” he went on, in perfect good humor, turning 
to the others. “You missed a good little scene. Rivers and Miss 
Bessemer had been taking a tramp over the Reservation — and, by 
the way, it’s a great place to walk, so my sister tells me; she and 
Dick Forsythe take a constitutional out there every Saturday morn- 
ing — well, as I was saying, Rivers and Miss Bessemer came upon 
our party rather unexpectedly. We were all togged out in our 
golfing bags, and I presume we looked more like tailor’s models, 
posing for the gallery, than people who were taking an outing ; but 
Rivers and Miss Bessemer had been regularly exercising ; looked as 
though they had done their fifteen miles since morning. They had 
their old clothes on, and they were dusty and muddy. 

“You would have thought that a young girl such as Miss Bes- 
semer is — for she’s very young — would have been a little embar- 
rassed at running up against such a spick and span lot as we were. 
Not a bit of it; didn’t lose her poise for a moment. She bowed to 
my sister and to me, as though from the top of a drag, by Jove ! 
and as though she were fresh from Redfern and Virot. You know 
a girl that can manage herself that way is a thoroughbred. She 
even remembered to cut little Johnnie Carter here, because Johnnie 
forced himself upon her one night at a dance when he was drunk; 
didn’t she, Johnnie? Johnnie came up to her there, out on the links, 
fresh as a daisy, and put out his hand, with, ‘Why, how do you do, 
Miss Bessemer?’ and ‘wherever did yoir come from?’ and ‘I haven’t 
seen you in so long’ ; and she says, ‘No, not since our last dance, I 
believe, Mr. Carter,’ and looked at his hand as though it was some- 
thing funny. 

“Little Johnnie mumbled and flushed and stammered and backed 
off ; and it was well that he did, because Rivers had begun to get 
red around the wattles. I say the little girl is a thoroughbred, and 
my sister wants to give her a dinner as soon as she comes out. But 
Johnnie says she’s declassce, so may be my sister had better think 
it over.” 

“I didn’t say she was declassee,” exclaimed Carter. “I only said 
she would do well to be more careful.” 

Sargeant shifted his cigar to the other corner of his mouth, one 
eye shut to avoid the smoke. 


io6 


Blix 


“One might say as much of lots of people,” he answered. 

“I don’t like your tone !” Carter flared out. 

“Oh, go to the devil, Johnnie ! Shall we all have a drink ?” 

On the Friday evening of that week, Condy set himself to his 
work at his accustomed hour. But he had had a hard day on the 
“Times,” Supplement, and his brain, like an overdriven horse, re- 
fused to work. In half an hour he had not written a paragraph. 

“I thought it would be better, in the end, to loaf for one even- 
ing,” he explained to Blix, some twenty minutes later, as they settled 
themselves in the little dining-room. “I can go at it better to-mor- 
row. See how you like this last chapter.” 

Blix was enthusiastic over “In Defiance of Authority.” Condy 
had told her the outline of the story, and had read to her each chapter 
as he finished it. 

“It’s the best thing you have ever done, Condy, and you know it. 
I suppose it has faults, but I don’t care anything about them. It’s 
the story itself that’s so interesting. After that first chapter of the 
boom restaurant and the exiles’ club, nobody would want to lay the 
book down. You’re doing the best work of your life so far, and you 
stick to it.” 

“It’s grinding out copy for the Supplement at the same time that 
takes all the starch out of me. You’ve no idea what it means to 
write all day, and then sit down and write all evening.” 

“I wish you could get off the ‘Times,’ ” said Blix. “You’re just 
giving the best part of your life to hack work, and now it’s interfer- 
ing with your novel. I know you could do better work on your 
novel if you didn’t have to work on the ‘Times,’ couldn’t you?” 

“Oh, if you come to *that, of course I could,” he answered. 
“But they won’t give me a vacation. I was sounding the editor on 
it day before yesterday. No ; I’ll have to manage somehow to swing 
the two together.” 

“Well, let’s not talk shop now, Condv. You need a rest. Do 
you want to play poker?” 

They played for upward of an hour that evening, and Condy, as 
usual, lost. His ill-luck was positively astonishing. During the last 
two months he had played poker with Blix on an average of three 
or four evenings in the week, and at the close of every game it was 
Blix who had all the chips. 

Blix had come to know the game quite as well, if not better, than he. 
She could almost invariably tell when Condy held a good hand, but on 
her part could assume an air of indifference absolutely inscrutable. 


Blix 107 

“Cards?” said Condy, picking up the deck after the deal. 

“I’ll stand pat, Condy.” 

“The deuce you say,” he answered, with a stare. “I’ll take three.” 

“I’ll pass it up to you,” continued Blix gravely. 

“Well — well, I'll bet you five chips.” 

“Raise you twenty.” 

Condy studied his hand, laid down the cards, picked them up 
again, scratched his head, and moved uneasily in his place. Then 
be threw down two high pairs. 

“No,” he said; “I won’t see you. What did you have? Let’s 
see, just for the fun of it.” 

Blix spread her cards on the table. 

“Not a blessed thing!” exclaimed Condy. “I might have known 
it. There’s my last dollar gone, too. Lend me fifty cents, Blix.” 

Blix shook her head. 

“Why, what a little niggard !” he exclaimed aggrievedly. “I’ll 
pay them all back to you.” 

“Now, why should I lend you money to play against me? I’ll 
not give you a chip; and, besides, I don’t want to play any more. 
Let’s stop.” 

“I’ve a mind to stop for good; stop playing even with you.” 

Blix gave a little cry of joy. 

“Oh, Condy, will you, could you? and never, never touch a card 
again? never play for money? I’d be so happy — but don’t unless 
you know you would keep your promise. I would much rather have 
you play every night, down there at your club, than break your 
promise.” 

Condy fell silent, biting thoughtfully at the knuckle of a fore- 
finger. 

“Think twice about it, Condy,” urged Blix ; “because this would 
be for always.” 

Condy hesitated; then, abstractedly and as though speaking to 
himself : 

“It’s different now. Before we took that — three months ago, I 
don’t say. It was harder for me to quit then, but now — well, every- 
thing is different now ; and it would please you, Blixy !” 

“More than anything else I can think of, Condy.” 

He gave her his hand. 

“That settles it,” he said quietly. “I’ll never gamble again, 
Blix.” 

Blix gripped his hand hard, then jumped up, and, with a quick 


108 Blix 

breath of satisfaction, gathered up the cards and chips and flung 
them into the fireplace. 

“Oh, I’m so glad that’s over with,” she exclaimed, her little 
eyes dancing. “I’ve pretended to like it, but I’ve hated it all the 
time. You don’t know how I’ve hated it! What men can see in it 
to make them sit up all night long is beyond me. And you truly 
mean, Condy, that you never will gamble again? Yes, I know you 
mean it this time. Oh, I’m so happy I could sing !” 

“Good Heavens, don’t do that!” he cried quickly. “You’re a 
nice, amiable girl, Blix, even if you’re not pretty, and you — ” 

“Oh, bother you!” she retorted; “but you promise?” 

“On my honor.” 

“That’s enough,” she said quietly. 

But even when “loafing” as he was this evening, Condy could 
not rid himself of the thought and recollection of his novel ; resting 
or writing, it haunted him. Otherwise he would not have been the 
story-writer that he was. From now on until he should set down the 
last sentence, the “thing” was never to let him alone, never to allow 
him a moment’s peace. He could think of nothing else, could talk of 
nothing else; every faculty of his brain, every sense of observation 
or imagination incessantly concentrated themselves upon this one 
point. 

As they sat in the bay window watching the moon rise, his 
mind was still busy with it, and he suddenly broke out: 

“I ought to work some kind of a treasure into the yarn. What’s 
a story of adventure without a treasure? By Jove, Blix, I wish 
I could give my whole time to this stuff ! It’s ripping good material, 
and it ought to be handled as carefully as glass. Ought to be 
worked up, you know.” 

“Condy,” said Blix, looking at him intently, “what is it stands in 
your way of leaving the ‘Times’? Would they take you back if 
you left them long enough to write your novel? You could write it 
in a month, couldn’t you, if you had nothing else to do? Suppose 
you left them for a month — would they hold your place for you ?” 

“Yes — yes, I think they would; but in the meanwhile, Blix — 
there’s the rub. I’ve never saved a cent out of my salary. When 
I stop, my pay stops, and wherewithal would I be fed? What are 
you looking for in that drawer — matches ? Here, I’ve got a match.” 

Blix faced about at the sideboard, shutting the drawer by lean- 
ing against it. In both hands she held one of the delft sugar-bowls. 
She came up to the table, and emptied its contents upon the blue 


Blix 


109 

denim table-cover — two or three gold pieces, some fifteen silver 
dollars, and a handful of small change. 

Disregarding all Condy ’s inquiries, she counted it, making little 
piles of the gold and silver and nickel pieces. 

"Thirty-five and seven is' forty-two,” she murmured, counting off 
on her fingers, “and six is forty-eight, and ten is fifty-eight, and 
ten is sixty-eight ; and here is ten, twenty, thirty, fifty-five cents in 
change.” She thrust it all toward him, across the table. “There,” 
she said, “is your wherewithal.” 

Condy stared. “My wherewithal!” he muttered. 

“It ought to be enough for over a month.” 

“Where did you get all that? Whose is it?” 

“It’s your money, Condy. You loaned it to me, and now it has 
come in very handy.” 

“I loaned it to you?” 

“It’s the money I won from you during the time you’ve been 
playing poker with me. You didn’t know it would amount to so 
much, did you?” 

“Pshaw, I’ll not touch it!” he exclaimed, drawing back from 
the money as though it was red-hot. 

“Yes, you will,” she told him. “I’ve been saving it up for you, 
Condy, every penny of it, from the first day we played down there 
at the lake; and I always told myself that the moment you made 
up your mind to quit playing, I would give it back to you.” 

“Why, the very idea!” he vociferated, his hands deep in his 
pockets, his face scarlet. “It’s — it’s preposterous, Blix ! I won’t 
let you talk about it even — I won’t touch a nickel of that money’. 
But, Blix, you’re — you’re — the finest woman I ever knew. You’re a 
man’s woman, that’s what you are.” He set his teeth. “If you 
loved a man, you’d be a regular pal to him; you’d back him up, 
you’d stand by him till the last gun was fired. I could do anything 
if a woman like you cared for me. Why, Blix, I — you haven’t any 
idea — ” He cleared his throat, stopping abruptly. 

“But you must take this money,” she answered; “your money. 
If you didn’t, Condy, it would make me out nothing more nor less 
than a gambler. I wouldn’t have dreamed of playing cards with 
you if I had ever intended to keep one penny of your money. From 
the very start I intended to keep it for you, and give it back to you 
so soon as you would stop ; and now you have a chance to put this 
money to a good use. You don’t have to stay on the ‘Times’ now. 
You can’t do your novel justice while you are doing your hack 


I IO 


Blix 


work at the same time, and I do so want ‘In Defiance of Authority’ 
to be a success. I’ve faith in you, Condy. I know if you got the 
opportunity you would make a success.” 

“But you and I have played like two men playing,” exclaimed 
Condy. “How would it look if Sargeant, say, should give me back 
the money he had won from me? What a cad I would be to take it !” 

“That’s just it — we’ve not played like two men. Then I would 
have been a gambler. I’ve played with you because I thought it 
would make a way for you to break off with the habit; and know- 
ing as I did how fond you were of playing cards and how bad it 
was for you, how wicked it would have been for me to have played 
with you in any other spirit ! Don’t you see ? And as it has turned 
out, you’ve given up playing, and you’ve enough money to make it 
possible for you to write your novel. The Centennial Company have 
asked you to try a story of adventure for them, you’ve found one that 
is splendid, you’re just the man who could handle it, and now you’ve 
got the money to make it possible. Condy,” she exclaimed sud- 
denly, “don’t you see your chance? Aren’t you a big enough man 
to see your chance when it comes? And, besides, do you think I 
would take money from you? Can’t you understand? If you don’t 
take this money that belongs to you, you would insult me. That is 
just the way I would feel about it. You must see that. If you care 
for me at all, you’ll take it.” 

The editor of the Sunday Supplement put his toothpick behind 
his ear and fixed Condy with his eyeglasses. 

“Well, it’s like this. Rivers,” he said. “Of course, you know 
your own business best. If you stay on here with us, it will be all 
right. But I may as well tell you that I don’t believe I can hold 
your place for a month. I can’t get a man in here to do your work 
for just a month, and then fire him out at the end of that time. 
I don’t like to lose you, but if you have an opportunity to get in on 
another paper during this vacation of yours, you’re at liberty to do 
so, for all of me.” 

“Then you think my chance of coming back here would be pretty 
slim if I leave for a month now?” 

“That’s right.” 

There was a silence. Condy hesitated ; then he rose. 

“I’ll take the chance,” he announced. 

To Blix, that evening, as he told her of the affair, he said : “It’s 
neck or nothing now, Blix.” 


Blix 


1 1 1 


XII 


But did Blix care for him? 

In the retired corner of his club, shut off by the Japanese screen, 
or going up and down the city to and from his work, or sitting 
with her in the bay window of the little dining-room looking down 
upon the city, blurred in the twilight or radiant with the sunset, 
Condy asked himself the question. A score of times each day he 
came to a final, definite, negative decision; and a score of times 
reopened the whole subject. Beyond the fact that Blix had enjoyed 
herself in his company during the last months, Condy could find 
no sign or trace of encouragement; and for that matter he told 
himself that the indications pointed rather in the other direction. 
She had no compunction in leaving him to go away to New York, 
perhaps never to return. In less than a month now all their com- 
panionship was to end, and he would probably see the last of her. 

He dared not let her know that at last he had really come to 
love her — that it was no pretence now ; for he knew that with such 
declaration their “good times” would end even before she should 
go away. But every day, every hour that they were together made 
it harder for him to keep himself within bounds. 

What with this trouble on his mind and the grim determination 
with which he held to his work, Condy changed rapidly. Blix had 
steadied him, and a certain earnestness and seriousness of purpose, 
a certain strength he had not known before, came swiftly into 
being. 

Was Blix to go away, leave him, perhaps for all time, and not 
know how much he cared? Would he speak before she went? 
Condy did not know. It was a question that circumstances would 
help him to decide. He would not speak, so he resolved, unless he 
was sure that she cared herself; and if she did, she herself would 
give him a cue, a hint whereon to speak. But days went by, the 
time set for Blix’s departure drew nearer and nearer, and yet she 
gave him not the slightest sign. 

These two interests had now absorbed his entire life for the 
moment — his love for Blix, and his novel. Little by little “In De- 
fiance of Authority” took shape. The boom restaurant and the club 


I 12 


Blix 


of the exiles were disposed of, Billy Isham began to come to the 
front, the filibustering expedition and Senora Estrada (with her 
torn calling card) had been introduced, and the expedition was 
ready to put to sea. But here a new difficulty was encountered. 

“What do I know about ships ?” Condy confessed to Blix. “If 
Billy Isham is going to command a filibustering schooner, I’ve got 
to know something about a schooner — appear to, anyhow. I’ve got 
to know nautical lingo, the real thing, you know. I don’t believe 
a real sailor ever in his life said ‘belay there,’ or ‘avast.’ We’ll have 
to go out and see Captain Jack; get some more technical detail.” 

This move was productive of the most delightful results. Cap- 
tain Jack was all on fire with interest the moment that Condy and 
Blix told him of the idea. 

“An’ you’re going to put Billy Isham in a book. Well, strike 
me straight, that’s a snorkin’ good idea. I’ve always said that all 
Billy needed was a ticket seller an’ an advance agent, an’ he was a 
whole show in himself.” 

“We’re going to send it East,” said Blix, “as soon as it’s finished, 
and have it published.” 

“Well, it ought to make prime readin’, Miss ; an’ that’s a good 
fetchin’ title, ‘In Defiance of Authority.’ ” 

Regularly Wednesday and Sunday afternoons, Blix and Condy 
came out to the lifeboat station. Captain Jack received them in 
sweater and visored cap, and ushered them into the front room. 

“Well, how’s the yarn getting on?” Captain Jack would ask. 

Then Condy would read the last chapter while the Captain 
paced the floor, frowning heavily, smoking cigars, listening to 
every word. Condy told the story in the first person, as if Billy 
Isham’s partner were narrating scenes and events in which he him- 
self had moved. Condy called this protagonist “Burke Cassowan,” 
and was rather proud of the name. But the captain would none of 
it. Cassowan, the protagonist, was simply “Our Mug.” 

“Now,” Condy would say, notebook in hand, “now, Cap., we’ve 
got down to Mazatlan. Now I want to sort of organize the expedi- 
tion in this next chapter.” 

“I see, I see,” Captain Jack would exclaim, interested at once. 
“Wait a bit till I take off my shoes. I can think better with my 
shoes off”; and having removed his shoes, he would begin to pace 
the room in his stocking feet, puffing fiercely on his cigar as he 
warmed to the tale, blowing the smoke out through either ear, 
gesturing savagely, his face flushed and his eyes kindling. 


Blix 


Il 3 

“Well, now, lessee. First thing Our Mug does when he gets to 
Mazatlan is to communicate his arrival to Senora Estrada— tele- 
graphs, you know ; and, by the way, have him use a cipher/’ 

“What kind of cipher?” 

“Count three letters on from the right letter, see. If you were 
spelling ‘boat/ for instance, you would begin with an e, the third 
letter after b; then r for the o, r being the third letter from o. So 
you’d spell ‘boat,’ erdw; and Senora Estrada knows when she gets 
that despatch that she must count three letters back from each letter 
to get the right ones. Take now such a cipher word as ulioh. That 
means ride. Count three letters back from each letter of ulioh, and 
it’ll spell ride. You can make up a lot of despatches like that, just 
to have the thing look natural ; savvy ?” 

“Out of sight !” muttered Condy, making a note. 

“Then Our Mug and Billy Isham start getting a crew. And 
Our Mug, he buys the sextant there in Mazatlan — the sextant, that 
got out of order and spoiled everything. Or, no; don’t have it a 
sextant; have it a quadrant — an old-fashioned, ebony quadrant. 
Have Billy Isham buy it because it was cheap.” 

“How did it get out of order, Captain Jack?” inquired Blix. 
“That would be a good technical detail, wouldn’t it, Condy ?” 

“Well, it’s like this. Our Mug an’ Billy get a schooner that’s 
so bally small that they have to do their cooking in the cabin; 
quadrant’s on a rack over the stove, and the heat warps the joints, 
so when Our Mug takes his observation he gets fifty miles off his 
course and raises the land where the government forces are watch- 
ing for him.” 

“And here’s another point, Cap.,” said Condy. “We ought to 
work some kind of a treasure into this yarn; can’t you think up 
something new and original in the way of a treasure? I don’t 
want the old game of a buried chest of money. Let’s have him get 
track of something that’s worth a fortune — something novel.” 

“Yes, yes; I see the idea,” answered the Captain, striding over 
the floor with great thuds of his stockinged feet. “Now, lessee; 
let me think,” he began, rubbing all his hair the wrong way. “We 
want something new and queer, something that ain’t ever been 
written up before. I tell you what ! Here it is ! Have Our Mug 
get wind of a little river schooner that sunk fifty years before his 
time in one of the big South American rivers, during a flood — I 
heard of this myself. Schooner went down and was buried twenty 
feet under mud and sand ; and since that time — you know how the 


Blix 


114 

big rivers act — the whole blessed course of the river has changed 
at that point, and the schooner is on dry land, or rather twenty 
feet under it, and as sound as the day she was chartered.” 

“Well?” 

“Well, have it that when she sank she had aboard of her a cargo 
of five hundred cases of whiskey, prime stuff, seven thousand quart 
bottles, sealed up tight as drums. Now Our Mug — nor Billy Isham 
either — they ain’t born yesterday. No, sir; they’re right next to 
themselves ! They figure this way. This here whiskey’s been kept 
fifty years without being moved. Now, what do you suppose seven 
thousand quart bottles of fifty-year-old whiskey would be worth? 
Why, twenty dollars a quart wouldn’t be too fancy. So there you 
are; there’s your treasure. Our Mug and Billy Isham have only 
got to dig through twenty feet of sand to pick up a hundred thou- 
sand dollars, if they can find the schooner ” 

Blix clapped her hands with a little cry of delight, and Condy* 
smote a knee, exclaiming: 

“By Jove ! that’s as good as Loudon Dodds’ opium ship ! Why, 
Cap., you’re a treasure in yourself for a fellow locking for stories.” 

Then after the notes were taken and the story talked over, Cap- 
tain Jack, especially if the day happened to be Sunday, would 
insist upon their staying to dinner — boiled beef and cabbage, 
smoking coffee and pickles — that K. D. B. served in the little, brick- 
paved kitchen in the back of the station. The crew messed in their 
quarters overhead. 

K. D. B. herself was not uninteresting. Her respectability in- 
cased her like armor plate, and she never laughed without putting 
three fingers to her lips. She told them that she had at one time 
been a “costume reader.” 

“A costume reader?” 

“Yes; reading extracts from celebrated authors in the appro- 
priate costume of the character. It used to pay very well, and it 
was very refined. I used to do Tn a Balcony,’ by Mister Browning, 
and ‘Laska,’ the same evening, and it always made a hit. I’d do Tn 
a Balcony’ first, and I’d put on a Louis-Quinze-the-fifteenth gown 
and wig-to-match over a female cowboy outfit. When I’d finished 
Tn a Balcony,’ I’d do an exit, and shunt the gown and wig-to-match, 
and come on as ‘Laska,’ with thunder noises off. It was one of the 
strongest effects in my repertoire, and it always got me a curtain 
call.” 

And Captain Jack would wag his head and murmur: 


Blix 


ll S 

“Extraordinary ! extraordinary !” 

Blix and Condy soon noted that upon the occasion of each one of 
their visits, K. D. B. found means to entertain them at great length 
with long discussions upon certain subjects of curiously diversified 
character. Upon their first visit she elected to talk upon the Alps 
mountains. The Sunday following it was bacteriology ; on the next 
Wednesday it was crystals; while for two hours during their next 
visit to the station, Condy and Blix were obliged to listen to K. D. 
B.’s interminable discourse on the origin, history, and development 
of the kingdom of Denmark. Condy was dumfounded. 

“I never met such a person, man or woman, in all my life. 
Talk about education! Why, I think she knows everything !” 

“In Defiance of Authority” soon began to make good progress, 
but Condy, once launched upon technical navigation, must have 
Captain Jack at his elbow continually, to keep him from founder- 
ing. In some sea novel he remembered to have come across the 
expression “garboard streak,” and from the context guessed it was 
to be applied to a detail of a vessel’s construction. In an unguarded 
moment he had written that his schooner’s name “was painted in 
showy gilt letters upon her garboard streak.” 

“What’s the garboard streak, Condy?” Blix had asked, when he 
had read the chapter to her. 

“That’s where they paint her name,” he declared promptly. “I 
don’t know exactly, but I like the sound of it.” 

But the next day, when he was reading this same chapter to 
Captain Jack, the latter suddenly interrupted with an exclamation 
as of acute physical anguish. 

“What’s that? Read that last over again,” he demanded. 

“ ‘When they had come within a few boat’s lengths,’ ” read 
Condy, “ ‘they were able to read the schooner’s name, painted in 
showy gilt letters upon her garboard streak.’ ” 

“My God!” gasped the Captain, clasping his head. Then, with 
a shout: “Garboard streak! garboard streak? Don’t you know that 
the garboard streak is the last plank next the keel? You mean 
counter, not garboard streak. That regularly graveled me, that 
did !” 

They stayed to dinner with the couple that afternoon, and for 
half an hour afterward K. D. B. told them of the wonders of the 
caves of Elephantis. One would have believed that she had actu- 
ally been at the place. But when she changed the subject to the 
science of fortification, Blix could no longer restrain herself. 


Blix 


ii 6 

“But it is really wonderful that you should know all these 
things ! Where did you find time to study so much ?” 

“One must have an education,” returned K. D. B. primly. 

But Condy had caught sight of a half-filled book-shelf against 
the opposite wall, and had been suddenly smitten with an inspiration. 
On a leaf of his notebook he wrote: “Try her on the G’s and H’s,” 
and found means to show it furtively to Blix. But Blix was puz- 
zled, and at the earliest opportunity Condy himself said to the re- 
tired costume reader: 

“Speaking of fortifications, Mrs. Hoskins, Gibraltar now — that’s 
a wonderful rock, isn’t it?” 

“Rock!” she queried. “I thought it was an island.” 

“Oh, no; it’s a fortress. They have a castle there — a castle, 
something like — well, like the old Schloss at Heidelberg. Did you 
ever hear about or read about Heidelberg University ?” 

But K. D. B. was all abroad now. Gibraltar and Heidelberg 
were unknown subjects to her, as were also inoculation, Japan, and 
Kosciusko. Above the G’s she was sound ; below that point her ig- 
norance was benighted. 

“But what is it, Condy?” demanded Blix, as soon as they were 
alone. 

“I’ve the idea,” he answered, chuckling. “Wait till after Sun- 
day to see if I’m right ; then I’ll tell you. It’s a dollar to a paper 
dime, K. D. B. will have something for us by Sunday, beginning 
with an I.” 

And she had. It was Internal Revenue. 

“Right! right!” Condy shouted gleefully, as he and Blix were 
on their way home. “I knew it. She’s done with Ash — Bol, Bol — 
Car, and all those, and has worked through Cod — Dem, and Dem 
— Eve. She’s down to Hor — Kin now, and she’ll go through the 
whole lot before she’s done — Kin — Mag, Mag — Mot, Mot — Pal, 
and all the rest.” 

“The Encyclopaedia?” 

“Don’t you see it? No wonder she didn’t know beans about Gib- 
raltar ! She hadn’t come to the G’s by then.” 

“She’s reading the Encyclopaedia.” 

“And she gets the volumes on the instalment plan, don’t you 
see? Reads the leading articles, and then springs ’em on us. To 
know things and talk about ’em, that’s her idea of being cultured. 
‘One must have an education.’ Do you remember her saying that? 
Oh, our matrimonial objects are panning out beyond all expectation !’’ 


Blix 


117 

What a delicious, never-to-be-forgotten month it was for those 
two ! There in the midst of life they were as much alone as upon a 
tropic island. Blix had deliberately freed herself from a world that 
had grown distasteful to her; Condy little by little had dropped 
away from his place among the men and the women of his acquaint- 
ance, and the two came and went together, living in a little world 
of their own creation, happy in each other’s society, living only in 
the present, and asking nothing better than to be left alone and to 
their own devices. 

They saw each other every day. In the morning from nine till 
twelve, and in the afternoon until three, Condy worked awafy upon 
his novel ; but not an evening passed that did not see him and Blix 
in the dining-room of the little flat. Thursdays and Sunday after- 
noons they visited the life-boat station, and at other times prowled 
about the unfrequented corners of the city, now passing an after- 
noon along the water front, watching the departure of a China 
steamer or the loading of the great, steel wheat ships ; now climb- 
ing the ladder-like streets of Telegraph Hill, or revisiting the Plaza, 
Chinatown, and the restaurant ; or taking long walks in the Presidio 
Reservation, watching cavalry and artillery drills ; or sitting for hours 
on the rocks by the seashore, watching the ceaseless roll and plunge 
of the surf, the wheeling sea-birds, and the sleek-headed seals 
hunting the offshore fish, happy for a half-hour when they sur- 
prised one with his prey in his teeth. 

One day, some three weeks before the end of the year, toward 
two in the afternoon, Condy sat in his usual corner of the club, be- 
hind the screen, writing rapidly. His coat was off and 'the stump 
of a cigar was between his teeth. At his elbow was the rectangular 
block of his manuscript. During the last week the story had run 
from him with a facility that had surprised and delighted him; 
words came to him without effort, ranging themselves into line 
with the promptitude of well-drilled soldiery; sentences and para- 
graphs marched down the clean-swept spaces of his paper, like com- 
panies and platoons defiling upon review ; his chapters were brigades 
that he marshaled at will, falling them in one behind the other, 
each preceded by its chapter-head, like an officer in the space be- 
tween two divisions. In the guise of a commander-in-chief sitting 
his horse upon an eminence that overlooked the field of operations, 
Condy at last took in the entire situation at a glance, and, with the 
force and precision of a machine, marched his forces straight to the 
goal he had set for himself so long a time before. 


Blix 


1 1 8 

Then at length he took a fresh penful of ink, squared his elbows, 
drew closer to the desk, and with a single swift spurt of the pen 
wrote the last line of his novel, dropping the pen upon the instant 
and pressing the blotter over the words as though setting a seal 
of approval upon the completed task. 

“There !” he muttered, between his teeth; “I’ve done for you!” 

That same afternoon he read the last chapter to Blix, and she 
helped him to prepare the manuscript for expressage. She insisted 
that it should go off that very day, and herself wrote the directions 
upon the outside wrapper. Then the two went down together to 
the Wells Fargo office, and “In Defiance of Authority” was sent on 
its journey across the continent. 

“Now,” she said, as they came out of the express office and 
stood for a moment upon the steps, “now there’s nothing to do 
but wait for the Centennial Company. I do so hope we’ll get their 
answer before I go away. They ought to take it. It’s just what 
they asked for. Don’t you think they’ll take it, Condy?” 

“Oh, bother that !” answered Condy. “I don’t care whether they 
take it or not. How long now is it before you go, Blix?” 


XIII 

A week passed ; then another. The year was coming to a close. 
In ten days Blix would be gone. Letters had been received from 
Aunt Kihm, and also an exquisite black leather traveling-case, a 
present to her niece, full of cut-glass bottles, ebony-backed brushes, 
and shell combs. Blix was to leave on the second day of January. 
In the meanwhile she had been reading far into her first-year text- 
books, underscoring and annotating, studying for hours upon such 
subjects as she did not understand, so that she might get hold of her 
work the readier when it came to class-room routine and lectures. 
Hers was a temperament admirably suited to the study she had 
chosen — self-reliant, cool, and robust. 

But it was not easy for her to go. Never before had Blix been 
away from her home ; never for longer than a week had she been 
separated from her father, nor from Howard and Snooky. That 
huge city upon the Atlantic seaboard, with its vast, fierce life, 
where beat the heart of the nation, and where beyond Aunt Kihm 
she knew no friend, filled Blix with a vague sense of terror and of 


Blix 


119 

oppression. She was going out into a new life, a life of work and 
of study, a harsher life than she had yet known. Her father, her 
friends, her home — all these were to be left behind. It was not 
surprising that Blix should be daunted at the prospect of so great 
a change in her life, now so close at hand. But if the tears did 
start at times, no one ever saw them fall, and with a courage that 
was all her own Blix watched the last days of the year trooping past, 
and the approach of the New Year that was to begin the new life. 

But Condy was thoroughly unhappy. Those wonderful three 
months were at an end. Blix was going. In less than a week now 
she would be gone. He would see the last of her. Then what ? He 
pictured himself — when he had said good-by to her and the train 
had lessened to a smoky blur in the distance — facing about, facing 
the life that must then begin for him, returning to the city alone, 
picking up the routine again. There would be nothing to look for- 
ward to then; he would not see Blix in the afternoon; would not 
sit with her in the evening in the little dining-room of the flat 
overlooking the city and the bay; would not wake in the morning 
with the consciousness that before the sun would set he would see 
her again, be with her, and hear the sound of her voice. The 
months that were to follow would be one long ache, one long, harsh, 
colorless grind without her. • How was he to get through that first 
evening that he must pass alone? And she did not care for him. 
Condy at last knew this to be so. Even the poor solace of knowing 
that she, too, was unhappy was denied him. She had never loved 
him, and never would. He was a chum to her, nothing more. 
Condy was too clear-headed to deceive himself upon this point. 
The time was come for her to go away, and she had given him 
no sign, no cue. 

The last days passed ; Blix’s trunk was packed, her half section 
engaged, her ticket bought. They said good-by to the old places 
they had come to know so well — Chinatown, the Golden Balcony, 
the water-front, the lake of San Andreas, Telegraph Hill, and Luna’s 
— and had bade farewell to Riccardo and to old Richardson. They 
had left K. D. B. and Captain Jack until the last day. Blix was 
to go on the second of January. On New Year’s Day she and 
Condy were to take their last walk, were to go out to the lifeboat 
station, and then on around the shore to the little amphitheatre of 
blackberry bushes — where they had promised always to write one 
another on the anniversary of their first visit — and then for the 
last time climb the hill, and go across the breezy downs to the city. 


120 


Blix 


Then came the last day of the old year, the last day but one that 
they would be together. They spent it in a long ramble along the 
water-front, following the line of the shipping even as far as Meiggs’s 
Wharf. They had come back to the flat for supper, and afterward, 
as soon as the family had left them alone, had settled themselves in 
the bay window to watch the New Year in. 

The little dining-room was dark, but for the indistinct blur of 
light that came in through the window — a. light that was a mingling 
of the afterglow, the new-risen moon, and the faint haze that the 
city threw off into the sky from its street lamps and electrics. From 
where they sat they could look down, almost as from a tower, into 
the city’s streets. Here a corner came into view ; further on a 
great puff of green foliage— palms and pines side by side — over- 
looked a wall. Here a street was visible for almost its entire length, 
like a stream of asphalt flowing down the pitch of the hill, dammed 
on either side by rows upon rows of houses; while further on the 
vague confusion of roofs and facades opened out around a patch of 
green lawn, the garden of some larger residence. 

As they looked and watched, the afterglow caught window after 
window, till all that quarter of the city seemed to stare up at them 
from a thousand ruddy eyes. The windows seemed infinite in num- 
ber, the streets endless in their complications; yet everything was 
deserted. At this hour the streets were empty, and would remain 
so until daylight. Not a soul was stirring; no face looked from 
any of those myriads of glowing windows ; no footfall disturbed the 
silence of those asphalt streets. There, almost within call be- 
hind those windows, shut off from -those empty streets, a thousand 
human lives were teeming, each the centre of its own circle of 
thoughts and words and actions ; and yet the solitude was pro- 
found, the desolation complete, the stillness unbroken by a single 
echo. 

The night — the last night of the old year — was fine ; the white, 
clear light from a moon they could not see grew wide and clear over 
the city, as the last gleam of the sunset faded. It was just warm 
enough for the window to be open, and for nearly three hours Condy 
and Blix sat looking down upon the city in these last moments of 
the passing year, feeling upon their faces an occasional touch of the 
breeze, that carried with if the smell of trees and flowers from 
the gardens below them, and the faint, fine taint of the ocean from far 
out beyond the Heads. But the scene was not in reality silent. At 
times when they listened intently, especially when they closed their 


Blix 


1 2 1 


eyes, there came to them a subdued, steady bourdon, profound, un- 
ceasing, a vast, numb murmur, like no other sound in all the gamut 
of nature— the sound of a city at night, the hum of a great, con- 
glomerate life, wrought out there from moment to moment under 
the stars and under the moon, while the last hours of the old year 
dropped quietly away. 

A star fell. 

Sitting in the window, the two noticed it at once, and Condy 
stirred for the first time in fifteen minutes. 

“That was a very long one,” he said, in a low voice. “Blix, you 
must write to me — we must write each other often.” 

“Oh, yes,” she answered. “We must not forget each other; we 
have had too good a time for that.” 

“Four years is a long time,” he went on. “Lots can happen in 
four years. Wonder what I’ll be doing at the end of four years? 
We’ve had a pleasant time while it lasted, Blix.” 

• “Haven’t we?” she said, her chin on her hand, the moonlight 
shining in her little, dark-brown eyes. 

Well, he was going to lose her. He had found out that he loved 
her only in time to feel the wrench of parting from her all the more 
keenly. What was he to do with himself after she was gone? 
What could he turn to in order to fill up the great emptiness that 
her going would leave in his daily life? And was she never to 
know how dear she was to him? Why not speak to her, why not 
tell her that he loved her? But Condy knew that Blix did not love 
him, and the knowledge of that must keep him silent; he must hug 
his secret to him, like the Spartan boy with his stolen fox, no matter 
how grievously it hurt him to do so. He and Blix had lived through 
two months of rarest, most untroubled happiness, with hardly more 
self-consciousness than two young and healthy boys. To bring that 
troublous, disquieting element of love between them — unrequited 
love, of all things — would be a folly. She would tell him — must in 
all honesty tell him that she did not love him, and all their delicious 
camaraderie would end in a “scene.” Condy, above everything, 
wished to look back on those two months, after she had gone, with- 
out being able to remember therein one single note that jarred. If 
the memory of her was all that he was to have, he resolved that at 
least that memory should be perfect. 

And the love of her had made a man of him — he could not 
forget that; had given to him just the strength that made it possible 
for him to keep that resolute, grim silence now. In those two 

F— IV— Norris 


122 


Blix 


months he had grown five years; he was more masculine, more 
virile. The very set of his mouth was different; between the eye- 
brows the cleft had deepened; his voice itself vibrated to a heavier 
note. No, no ; so long as he should live, he, man grown as he was, 
could never forget this girl of nineteen who had come into his life 
so quietly, so unexpectedly, who had influenced it so irresistibly 
and so unmistakably for its betterment, and who had passed out of 
it with the passing of the year. 

For a few moments Condy had been absent-mindedly snapping 
the lid of his cigarette case, while he thought; now he selected a 
cigarette, returned the case to his pocket, and fumbled for a match. 
But the little gun-metal case he carried was empty. Blix rose and 
groped for a moment upon the mantel-shelf, then returned and 
handed him a match, and stood over him while he scraped it under 
the arm of the chair wherein he sat. Even when his cigarette was 
lighted she still stood there, looking at him, the fingers of her hands 
clasped in front of her, her hair, one side of her cheek, her chin, 
and sweet, round neck outlined by the faint blur of light that came 
from the open window. Then quietly she said: 

“Well, Condy?” 

“Well, Blix?” 

“Just ‘weir?” she repeated. “Is that all? Is that all you have to 
say to me?” 

He gave a great start. 

“Blix!” he exclaimed. 

“Is that all? And you are going to let me go away from you 
for so long, and say nothing more than that to me ? You think you 
have been so careful, think you have kept your secret so close! 
Condy, don’t you suppose I know? Do you suppose women are so 
blind? No, you don’t need to tell me; I know — I’ve known it — oh, 
for weeks !” 

“You know — know — know what?” he exclaimed, breathless. 

“That you have been pretending that you did not love me. I 
know that you do love me — I know you have been trying to keep it 
from me for fear it would spoil our good times, and because we had 
made up our minds to be chums, and have ‘no more foolishness.’ 
Once — in those days when we first knew each other — I knew you 
did not love me when you said you did; but now, since — oh, since 
that afternoon in the Chinese restaurant, remember? — I’ve known 
that you did love me, although you pretended you didn’t. It was 
the pretence I wanted to be rid of ; I wanted to be rid of it when 


Blix 


123 

you said you loved me and didn’t, and I want to be rid of it now 
when you pretend not to love me and I know you do,” and Blix 
leaned back her head as she spoke that “know,” looking at him from 
under her lids, a smile upon her lips. “It’s the pretence that I 
won’t have,” she added. “We must be sincere with each other, you 
and I.” 

“Blix, do you love me?” 

Condy had risen to his feet, his breath was coming quick, his 
cigarette was flung away, and his hands opened and shut swiftly. 

“Oh, Blixy, little girl, do you love me?” 

They stood there for a moment in the half dark, facing one 
another, their hearts beating, their breath failing them in the tension 
of the instant. There in that room, high above the city, a little 
climax had come swiftly to a head, a crisis in two lives had suddenly 
developed. The moment that had been in preparation for the last 
few months, the last few years, the last few centuries, behold! it 
had arrived. 

“Blix, do you love me?” 

Suddenly it was the New Year. Somewhere close at hand a 
chorus of chiming church bells sang together. Far off in the direc- 
tion of the wharves, where the great ocean steamships lay, came 
the glad, sonorous shouting of a whistle ; from a nearby street a 
bugle called aloud. And then from point to point, from street to roof 
top, and from roof to spire, the vague murmur of many sounds 
grew and spread and widened, slowdy, grandly; that profound and 
steady bourdon, as of an invisible organ swelling, deepening, and 
expanding to the full male diapason of the city aroused and signal- 
ing the advent of another year. 

And they heard it, they two heard it, standing there face to 
face, looking into each other’s eyes, that unanswered question yet 
between them, the question that had come to them with the turning 
of the year. It was the old year yet when Condy had asked that 
question. In that moment’s pause, while Blix hesitated to answer 
him, the New Year had come. And while the huge, vast note of 
the city swelled and vibrated, she still kept silent. But only for a 
moment. Then she came closer to him, and put a hand on each of 
his shoulders. 

“Happy New Year, dear,” she said. 

On New Year’s Day, the last day they were to be together, Blix 
and Condy took “their walk,” as they had come to call it — the walk 


Blix 


124 

that included the lifeboat station, the Golden Gate, the ocean 
beach beyond the old fort, the green, bare, flower-starred hills and 
downs, and the smooth levels of the golf links. Blix had been busy 
with the last details of her packing, and they did not get started 
until toward two in the afternoon. 

“Strike me!” exclaimed Captain Jack, as Blix informed him 
that she had come to say good-by. “Why, ain’t this very sudden- 
like, Miss Bessemer? Hey, Kitty, come in here. Here’s Miss 
Bessemer come to say good-by; going to New York to-morrow.” 

“We’ll regularly be lonesome without you, miss,” said K. D. B., 
as she came into the front room, bringing with her a brisk, pungent 
odor of boiled vegetables. “New York — such a town as it must 
be! It was called Manhattan at first, you know, and was settled 
by the Dutch.” 

Evidently K. D. B. had reached the N’s. 

With such deftness as she possessed, Blix tried to turn the con- 
versation upon the first meeting of the retired sea captain and the 
one-time costume reader, but all to no purpose. The “Matrimo- 
nial Objects” were perhaps a little ashamed of their “personals” by 
now, and neither Blix nor Condy were ever to hear their version of 
the meeting in the back dining-room of Luna’s Mexican restaurant. 
Captain Jack was, in fact, anxious to change the subject. 

“Any news of the yarn yet?” he suddenly inquired of Condy. 
“What do those Eastern publishin’ people think of Our Mug and 
Billy Isham and the whiskey schooner?” 

Condy had received the rejected manuscript of “In Defiance of 
Authority” that morning, accompanied by a letter from the Cen- 
tennial Company. 

“Well,” he said in answer, “they’re not, as you might say, falling 
over themselves trying to see who’ll be the first to print it. It’s 
been returned.” 

“The devil you say f” responded the Captain. “Well, that’s kind 
of disappointin’ to you, ain’t it?” 

“But,” Blix hastened to add, “we’re not at all discouraged. 
We’re going to send it off again right away.” 

Then she said good-by to them. 

“I dunno as you’ll see me here when you come back, miss,” said 
the Captain, at the gate, his arm around K. D. B. “I’ve got to 
schemin’ again. Do you know,” he added, in a low, confidential 
tone, “that all the mines in California send their clean-ups and gold 
bricks down to the Selby smeltin’ works once every week? They 


Blix 


I2 5 

send ’em to San Francisco first, and they are taken up to Selby’s 
Wednesday afternoons on a little stern-wheel steamer called the 
“Monticello.” All them bricks are in a box — dumped in like so 
much coal — and that box sets just under the wheel-house, for’ard. 
How much money do you suppose them bricks represent? Well, I’ll 
tell you ; last week they represented seven hundred and eighty thou- 
sand dollars. Well, now, I got a chart of the bay near Vallejo; the 
channel’s all right, but there are mudflats that run out from shore 
three miles. Enough water for a Whitehall, but not enough for — 
well, for the patrol boat, for instance. Two or three slick boys, of 
a foggy night — of course, I’m not in that kind of game, but strike! 
it would be a deal now, wouldn’t it?” 

“Don’t you believe him, miss,” put in K. D. B. “He’s just 
talking to show off.” 

“I think your scheme of holding up a Cunard liner,” said Condy, 
with great earnestness, “is more feasible. You could lay across her 
course and fly a distress signal. She’d have to heave to.” 

“Yes, I been thinkin’ o’ that; but look here — what’s to prevent the 
liner taking right after your schooner after you’ve got the stuff 
aboard — just followin’ you right around an’ findin’ out where you 
land?” 

“She’d be under contract to carry Government mails,” contra- 
dicted Condy. “She couldn’t do that. You’d leave her mails aboard 
for just that reason. You wouldn’t rob her of her mails; just so 
long as she was carrying government mails she couldn’t stop.” 

The Captain clapped his palm down upon the gate-post. 

“Strike me straight! I never thought of that.” 


XIV 

Blix and Condy went on; on along the narrow road upon the 
edge of the salt marshes and tides that lay between the station and 
the Golden Gate; on to the Golden Gate itself, and around the old 
grime-incrusted fort to the ocean shore, with its reaches of hard, 
white sand, where the bowlders lay tumbled and the surf grumbled 
incessantly. 

The world seemed very far away from them here on the shores 
of the Pacific, on that first afternoon of the New Year. They were 
supremely happy, and they sufficed to themselves. Condy had for- 
gotten all about the next day, when he must say good-by to Blix. 


126 


Blix 


It did not seem possible, it was not within the bounds of possibility, 
that she was to go away — that they two were to be separated. And 
for that matter, to-morrow was to-morrow. It was twenty-four 
hours away. The present moment was sufficient. 

The persistence with which they clung to the immediate moment, 
their happiness in living only in the present, had brought about a 
rather curious condition of things between them. 

In their love for each other there was no thought of marriage; 
they were too much occupied with the joy of being together at that 
particular instant to think of the future. They loved each other, 
and that was enough. They did not look ahead further than the 
following day, and then but furtively, and only in order that their 
morrow’s parting might intensify their happiness of to-day. That 
New Year’s Day was to be the end of everything. Blix was going; 
she and Condy would never see each other again. The thought of 
marriage — with its certain responsibilities, its duties, its gravity, its 
vague, troublous seriousness, its inevitable disappointments — was 
even a little distasteful to them. Their romance had been hitherto 
without a flaw; they had been genuinely happy in little things. 
It was as well that it should end that day, in all its pristine sweet- 
ness, unsullied by a single bitter moment, undimmed by the cloud of 
a single disillusion or disappointment. Whatever chanced to them 
in later years, they could at least cherish this one memory of a 
pure, unselfish affection, young and unstained and almost without 
thought of sex, come and gone on the very threshold of their lives. 
This was the end, they both understood. They were glad that it was 
to be so. They did not even speak again of writing to each other. 

They found once more the little semicircle of blackberry bushes 
and the fallen log, half-way up the hill above the shore, and sat 
there a while, looking down upon the long green rollers, marching 
incessantly toward the beach, and there breaking in a prolonged ex- 
plosion of solid green water and flying spume. And their glance 
followed their succeeding ranks further and further out to sea, till 
the multitude blended into the mass — the vast, green, shifting mass 
that drew the eye on and on, to the abrupt, fine line of the horizon. 

There was no detail in the scene. There was nothing but the 
great reach of the ocean floor, the unbroken plane of blue sky, and 
the bare green slope of land — three immensities, gigantic, vast, pri- 
mordial. It was no place for trival ideas and thoughts of little things. 
The mind harked back unconsciously to the broad, simpler, basic 
emotions, the fundamental instincts of the race. The huge spaces 


Blix 


127 

of earth and air and water carried with them a feeling of kindly 
but enormous force — elemental force, fresh, untutored, new, and 
young. There was buoyancy in it; a fine, breathless sense of up- 
lifting and exhilaration ; a sensation as of bigness and a return to the 
homely, human, natural life, to the primitive old impulses, irresistible, 
changeless, and unhampered; old as the ocean, stable as the hills, 
vast as the unplumbed depths of the sky. 

Condy and Blix sat still, listening, looking, and watching— the 
intellect drowsy and numb; the emotions, the senses, all alive and 
brimming to the surface. Vaguely they felt the influence of the 
moment. Something was preparing for them. From the lowest, 
untouched depths in the hearts of each of them something was rising 
steadily to consciousness and the light of day. There is no name for 
such things, no name for the mystery that spans the interval be- 
tween man and woman — the mystery that bears no relation to their 
love for each other, but that is something better than love, and 
whose coming savors of the miraculous. 

The afternoon had waned and the sun had begun to set when 
Blix rose. 

“We should be going, Condy,” she told him. 

They started up the hill, and Condy said: “I feel as though I 
had been somehow asleep with my eyes wide open. What a glori- 
ous sunset ! It seems to me as though I were living double every 
minute; and oh! Blix, isn’t it the greatest thing in the world to 
love each other as we do?” 

They had come to the top of the hill by now, and went on across 
the open, breezy downs, all starred with blue iris and wild helio- 
trope. Blix drew his arm about her waist, and laid her cheek upon 
his shoulder with a little caressing motion. 

“And I do love you, dear,” she said — “love you with all my 
heart. And it’s for always, too ; I know that. Fve been a girl until 
within the last three or four days — just a girl, dearest; not very 
serious, I’m afraid, and not caring for anything else beyond what 
was happening close around me — don’t you understand? But since 
I’ve found out how much I loved you dnd knew that you loved me 
— why, everything is changed for me. I’m not the same, I enjoy 
things that I never thought of enjoying before, and I feel so — oh, 
larger, don’t you know? — and stronger, and so much more serious. 
Just a little while ago I was only nineteen, but I think, dear, that by 
loving you I have become — all of a sudden and without knowing it 
— a woman.” 


128 


Blix 


A little trembling ran through her with the words. She stopped 
and put both arms around his neck, her head tipped back, her eyes 
half closed, her sweet yellow hair rolling from her forehead. Her 
whole dear being radiated with that sweet, clean perfume that 
seemed to come alike from her clothes, her neck, her arms, her hair, 
and mouth — the delicious, almost divine, feminine aroma that was 
part of herself. 

“You do love me, Condy, don’t you, just as I love you?” 

Such words as he could think of seemed pitifully inadequate. 
For answer he could only hold her the closer. She understood. 
Her eyes closed slowly, and her face drew nearer to his. Just above 
a whisper, she said: 

“I love you, dear!” 

“I love you, Blix!” 

And they kissed each other then upon the mouth. 

Meanwhile the sun had been setting. Such a sunset ! The whole 
world, the three great spaces of sea and land and sky, were incar- 
nadined with the glory of it. The ocean floor was a blinding red 
radiance, the hills were amethyst, the sky one gigantic opal, and they 
two seemed poised in the midst of all the chaotic glory of a primi- 
tive world. It was New Year’s Day; the earth was new, the year 
was new, and their love was new and strong. Everything was be- 
fore them. There was no longer any past, no longer any present. 
Regrets and memories had no place in their new world. It was 
Hope, Hope, Hope, that sang to them and called to them and smote 
into life the new keen blood of them. 

Then suddenly came the miracle, like the flashing out of a new 
star, whose radiance they felt but could not see, like a burst of 
music whose harmony they felt but could not hear. And as they 
stood there alone in all that simple glory of sky and earth and sea, 
they knew all in an instant that they were for each other, forever 
and forever, for better or for worse, till death should them part. 
Into their romance, into their world of little things, their joys of the 
moment, their happiness of the hour, had suddenly descended a 
great and lasting joy, the happiness of the great, grave issues of life 
— a happiness so deep, so intense, as to thrill them with a sense of 
solemnity and wonder. Instead of being the end, that New Year’s 
Day was but the beginning — the beginning of their real romance. 
All the fine, virile, masculine energy of him was aroused and ram- 
pant. All her sweet, strong womanliness had been suddenly deep- 
ened and broadened. In fine, he had become a man, and she a 


Blix 


129 

woman. Youth, life, and the love of man and woman, the strength 
of the hills, the depth of the ocean, and the beauty of the sky at 
sunset; that was what the New Year had brought to them. 


“It’s good-by, dear, isn't it?" said Blix. 

But Condy would not have it so. 

“No, no," he told her; “no, Blix; no matter how often we sepa- 
rate after this wonderful New Year’s Day, no matter how far we 
are apart, we two shall never, never say good-by." 

“Oh, you’re right, you’re right!" she answered, the tears begin- 
ning to shine in her little dark-brown eyes. “No; so long as we 
love each other, nothing matters. There’s no such thing as distance 
for us, is there? Just think, you will be here on the shores of the 
Pacific, and I on the shores of the Atlantic, but the whole continent 
can’t come between us.” 

“And we’ll be together again, Blix," he said; “and it won’t be 
very long now. Just give me time — a few years now." 

“But so long as we love each other, time won’t matter either." 

“What are the tears for, Blixy?" he asked, pressing his hand- 
kerchief to her cheek. 

“Because this is the saddest and happiest day of my life," she 
answered. Then she pulled from him with a little laugh, adding: 
“Look, Condy, you’ve dropped your letter. You pulled it out just 
now with your handkerchief." 

As Condy picked it up, she noted the name of the Centennial 
Company upon the corner. 

“It’s the letter I got with the manuscript of the novel when 
they sent it back," he explained. 

“What did they say?" 

“Oh, the usual thing. I haven’t read it yet. Here’s what they 
say." He opened it and read : 

“We return to you herewith the MS. of your novel, ‘In Defiance of Au- 
thority,’ and regret that our reader does not recommend it as available for 
publication at present. We have, however, followed your work with con- 
siderable interest, and have read a story by you, copied in one of our ex 
changes, under the title, ‘A Victory Over Death,’ which we would have been 
glad to publish ourselves, had you given us the chance. 

“Would you consider the offer of the assistant editorship of our Quar- 
terly , a literary and critical pamphlet, that we publish in New York, and 
with which we presume you are familiar? We do not believe there would 


Blix 


130 

be any difficulty in the matter of financial arrangements. In case youshould 
decide to come on, we inclose R.R. passes via the A. T. & S. F., C. & A., 
and New York Central. “Very truly, 

“The Centennial Publishing Company, 

“New York.” 

The two exchanged glances. But Blix was too excited to speak, 
and could only give vent to a little, quivering, choking sigh. The 
letter was a veritable god from the machine, the one thing lacking 
to complete their happiness. 

“I don’t know how this looks to you” Condy began, trying to 
be calm, “but it seems to me that this is — that this — this — ” 

But what they said then they could never afterward remember. 
The golden haze of the sunset somehow got into their recollection 
of the moment, and they could only recall the fact that they had 
been gayer in that moment than ever before in all their lives. 

Perhaps as gay as they ever were to be again. They began to 
know the difference between gayety and happiness. That New 
Year’s Day, that sunset, marked for them an end and a beginning. 
It was the end of their gay, irresponsible, hour-to-hour life of the 
past three months; and it was the beginning of a new life, whose 
possibilities of sorrow and of trouble, of pleasure and of happiness, 
were greater than aught they had yet experienced. They knew 
this — they felt it instinctively, as with a common impulse they 
turned and looked back upon the glowing earth and sea and sky, 
the breaking surf, the beach, the distant, rime-incrusted, ancient 
fort — all that scene that to their eyes stood for the dear, free, care- 
less companionship of those last few months. Their new-found 
happiness was not without its sadness already. All was over now; 
their solitary walks, the long, still evenings in the little dining- 
room overlooking the sleeping city, their excursions to Luna’s, their 
afternoons spent in the golden Chinese balcony, their mornings on 
the lake, calm and still and hot. Forever and forever they had said 
good-by to that life. Already the sunset was losing its glory. 

Then, with one last look, they turned about and set their faces 
from it to the new life,, to the East, where lay the Nation. Out 
beyond the purple bulwarks of the Sierras, far off, the great, grim 
world went clashing through its grooves — the world that now they 
were to know, the world that called to them, and woke them, and 
roused them. Their little gayeties were done; the life of little 
things was all behind. Now for the future. The sterner note had 


Blix 


struck — work was to be done; that, too, the New Year had brought 
to them — work for each of them, work and the World of men. 

For a moment they shrank from it, loth to take the first step 
beyond the confines of the garden wherein they had lived so joy- 
ously and learned to love each other ; and as they stood there, facing 
the gray and darkening Eastern sky, their backs forever turned to 
the sunset, Blix drew closer to him, putting her hand in his, looking 
a little timidly into his eyes. But his arm was around her, and the 
strong young force that looked into her eyes from his gave her 
courage. 

“A happy New Year, dear,” she said. 

“A very, very happy New Year, Blix,” he answered. 


THE END 













































- - 



























































Moran of the 
Lady Letty 

A STORY OF ADVENTURE 
OFF THE CALIFORNIA COAST 

BY 

FRANK NORRIS 




Copyright, 1898, by 
S. S. McClure Company 


DEDICATED TO 


Captain Joseph i^obggon 

UNITED STATES LIFE SAVING SERVICE 






















































































. 














r 




































* 











MORAN OF THE LADY LETTY 


i 

SHANGHAIED 

This is to be a story of a battle, at least one murder, and sev- 
eral sudden deaths. For that reason it begins with a pink tea and 
among the mingled odors of many delicate perfumes and the hale, 
frank smell of Caroline Testout roses. 

There had been a great number of debutantes “coming out” that 
season in San Francisco by means of afternoon teas, pink, lavender, 
and otherwise. This particular tea was intended to celebrate the 
fact that Josie Herrick had arrived at that time of her life when 
she was to wear her hair high and her gowns long, and to have a 
“day” of her own quite distinct from that of her mother. 

Ross Wilbur presented himself at the Herrick house on Pacific 
Avenue much too early upon the afternoon of Miss Herrick’s tea. 
As he made his way up the canvased stairs he was aware of a ter- 
rifying array of millinery and a disquieting staccato chatter of femi- 
nine voices in the parlors and reception-rooms on either side of the 
hallway. A single high hat in the room that had been set apart for 
the men’s use confirmed him in his suspicions. 

“Might have known it would be a hen party till six, anyhow,” 
he muttered, swinging out of his overcoat. “Bet I don’t know one 
girl in twenty down there now — all mamma’s friends at this hour, 
and papa’s maiden sisters, and Jo’s school-teachers and governesses 
and music-teachers, and I don’t know what all.” 

When he went down he found it precisely as he expected. He 
went up to Miss Herrick, where she stood receiving with her mother 
and two of the other girls, and allowed them to chaff him on his 
forlornness. 

“Maybe I seem at my ease,” said Ross Wilbur to them, “but 
really I am very much frightened. I’m going to run away as soon 
as it is decently possible, even before, unless you feed me.” 

“I believe you had luncheon not two hours ago,” said Miss Her- 

(137) 


138 Moran of the Lady Letty 

rick. “Come along, though, and I’ll give you some chocolate, and 
perhaps, if you're good, a stuffed olive. I got them just because I 
knew you liked them. I ought to stay here and receive, so I can’t 
look after you for long.” 

The two fought their way through the crowded rooms to the 
luncheon-table, and Miss Herrick got Wilbur his chocolate and his 
stuffed olives. They sat down and talked in a window recess for a 
moment, Wilbur toeing-in in absurd fashion as he tried to make a 
lap for his plate. 

“I thought,” said Miss Herrick, “that you were going on the 
Ridgeways’ yachting party this afternoon. Mrs. Ridgeway said she 
was counting on you. They are going out with the ‘Petrel.’ ” 

“She didn’t count above a hundred, though,” answered Wilbur. 
“I got your bid first, so I regretted the yachting party ; and I guess 
I’d have regretted it anyhow,” and he grinned at her over his cup. 

“Nice man,” she said — adding on the instant, “I must go now, 
Ross.” 

“Wait till I eat the sugar out of my cup,” complained Wilbur. 
“Tell me,” he added, scraping vigorously at the bottom of the cup 
with the inadequate spoon; “tell me, you’re going to the hoe-down 
to-night ?” 

“If you mean the Assembly, yes, I am.” 

“Will you give me the first and last?” 

“I’ll give you the first, and you can ask for the last then.” 

“Let’s put it down; I know you’ll forget it.” Wilbur drew a 
couple of cards from his case. 

“Programmes are not good form any more,” said Miss Herrick. 

“Forgetting a dance is worse.” 

He made out the cards, writing on the one he kept for himself, 
“First waltz — Jo.” 

“I must go back now,” said Miss Herrick, getting up. 

“In that case I shall run — I’m afraid of girls.” 

“It’s a pity about you.” 

“I am ; one girl, I don’t say, but girl in the aggregate like this,” 
and he pointed his chin toward the thronged parlors. “It un- 
mans me.” 

“Good-by, then.” 

“Good-by, until to-night, about — ?” 

“About nine.” 

“About nine, then.” 

Ross Wilbur made his adieu to Mrs. Herrick and the girls who 


Shanghaied 139 

were receiving, and took himself away. As he came out of the 
house and stood for a moment on the steps, settling his hat gingerly 
upon his hair so as not to disturb the parting, he was not by any 
means an ill-looking chap. His good height was helped out by 
his long coat and his high silk hat, and there was plenty of jaw in 
the lower part of his face. Nor was his tailor altogether answer- 
able for his shoulders. Three years before this time Ross Wilbur 
had pulled at No. 5 in his varsity boat in an Eastern college that 
was not accustomed to athletic discomfiture. 

“I wonder what I’m going to do with myself until supper time/’ 
he muttered, as he came down the steps, feeling for the middle of his 
stick. He found no immediate answer to his question. But the 
afternoon was fine, and he set off to walk in the direction of the 
town, with a half-formed id ‘‘a of looking in at his club. 

At his club he found a letter in his box from his particular 
chum, who had been spending the month shooting elk in Oregon. 

“Dear Old Man,” it said, “will be back on the afternoon you 
receive this. Will hit the town on the three o’clock boat. Get 
seats for the best show going — my treat — and arrange to assimilate 
nutriment at the Poodle Dog — also mine. I’ve got miles of talk in 
me that I’ve got to reel off before midnight. Yours, 

“Jerry. 

“I’ve got a stand of horns for you, Ross, that are Glory Halle- 
lujah.” 

“Well, I can’t go,” murmured Wilbur, as he remembered the 
Assembly that was to come off that night and his engaged dance 
with Jo Herrick. He decided that it would be best to meet Jerry 
as he came off the boat and tell him how matters stood. Then he 
resolved, since no one that he knew was in the club, and the instal- 
ment of the Paris weeklies had not arrived, that it would be amus- 
ing to go down to the water-front and loaf among the shipping until 
it was time for Jerry’s boat. 

Wilbur spent an hour along the wharves, watching the great 
grain ships consigned to “Cork for orders” slowly gorging them- 
selves with whole harvests of wheat from the San Joaquin Valley; 
lumber vessels for Durban and South African ports settling lower 
and lower to the water’s level as forests of pine and redwood 
stratified themselves along their decks and in their holds; coal 
barges discharging from Nanaimo ; busy little tugs coughing 


140 


Moran of the Lady Letty 

and nuzzling at the flanks of the deep-sea tramps, while hay barges 
and Italian whitehalls came and went at every turn. A Stockton 
River boat went by, her stern wheel churning along behind, like a 
huge net-reel ; a tiny maelstrom of activity centred about an Alaska 
Commercial Company’s steamboat that would clear for Dawson in 
the morning. 

No quarter of one of the most picturesque cities in the world 
had more interest for Wilbur than the water-front. In the mile or 
so of shipping that stretched from the docks where the China 
steamships landed, down past the ferry slips and on to Meiggs’s 
Wharf, every maritime nation in the world was represented. More 
than once Wilbur had talked to the loungers of the wharves, steve- 
dores out of work, sailors between voyages, caulkers and ship 
chandlers’ men looking — not too earnestly — for jobs; so that on 
this occasion, when a little, undersized fellow in dirty brown 
sweater and clothes of Barbary coast cut asked him for a match 
to light his pipe, Wilbur offered a cigar and passed the time of day 
with him. Wilbur had not forgotten that he himself was dressed 
for an afternoon function. But the incongruity of the business 
was precisely what most amused him. 

After a time the fellow suggested drinks. Wilbur hesitated 
for a moment. It would be something to tell about, however, so, 
“All right, I’ll drink with you,” he said. 

The brown sweater led the way to a sailors’ boarding-house 
hard by. The rear of the place was built upon piles over the 
water. But in front, on the ground floor, was a barroom. 

“Rum an’ gum,” announced the brown sweater, as the two came 
in and took their places at the bar. 

“Rum an’ gum, Tuck; wattle you have, sir?” 

“Oh — I don’t know,” hesitated Wilbur; “give me a mild Man- 
hattan.” 

While the drinks were being mixed the brown sweater called 
Wilbur’s attention to a fighting head-dress from the Marquesas that 
was hung on the wall over the free-lunch counter and opposite the 
bar. Wilbur turned about to look at it, and remained so, his back 
to the barkeeper, till the latter told them their drinks were ready. 

“Well, mate, here’s big blocks an’ taut hawse-pipes,” said the 
brown sweater cordially. 

“Your very good health,” returned Wilbur. 

The brown sweater wiped a thin mustache in the hollow of his 
palm, and wiped that palm upon his trouser leg. 


Shanghaied *141 

“Yessir he continued, once more facing the Marquesas head- 
dress. “Yessir, they're queer game down there.” 

“In the Marquesas Islands, you mean ?” said Wilbur. 

“Yessir, they’re queer game. When they ain’t tattoin’ their- 
selves with Scripture tex’s they git from the missionaries, they’re 
pullin’ out the hairs all over their bodies with two clam-shells. 
Hair by hair, y’ understan’ ?” 

“Pull’n out ’er hair?” said Wilbur, wondering what was the 
matter with his tongue. 

“They think it’s clever — think the women folk like it.” 

Wilbur had fancied that the little man had worn a brown sweater 
when they first met. But now, strangely enough, he was not in 
the least surprised to see it iridescent like a pigeon’s breast. 

“Y’ ever been down that way?” inquired the little man next. 

Wilbur heard the words distinctly enough, but somehow they 
refused to fit into the right places in his brain. He pulled himself 
together, frowning heavily. 

“What — did — you — say?” he asked with great deliberation, bit- 
ing off his words. Then he noticed that he and his companion 
were no longer in the barroom, but in a little room back of it. His 
personality divided itself. There was one Ross Wilbur — who 
could not make his hands go where he wanted them, who said one 
word when he thought another, and whose legs below the knee 
were made of solid lead. Then there was another Ross Wilbur — 
Ross Wilbur, the alert, who was perfectly clear-headed, and who 
stood off to one side and watched his twin brother making a monkey 
of himself, without power and without even the desire of helping 
him. 

This latter Wilbur heard the iridescent sweater say : 

“Bust me, if y’ a’n’t squiffy, old man. Stand by a bit an’ we’ll 
have a ball.” 

“Can’t have got — return — exceptionally — and the round table 
— pull out hairs wi’ tu clamsh’ls,” gabbled Wilbur’s stupefied 
double; and Wilbur the alert said to himself: “You’re not drunk, 
Ross Wilbur, that’s certain ; what could they have put in your 
cocktail ?” 

The iridescent sweater stamped twice upon the floor and a trap- 
door fell away beneath Wilbur’s feet like the drop of a gallows. 
With the eyes of his undrugged self Wilbur had a glimpse of water 
below. His elbow struck the floor as he went down, and he felt 
feet first into a Whitehall boat. He had time to observe two men 


142 • Moran of the Lady Letty 

at the oars and to look between the piles that supported the house 
above him and catch a glimpse of the bay and a glint of the Contra 
Costa shore. He was not in the least surprised at what had hap- 
pened, and made up his mind that it would be a good idea to lie 
down in the boat and go to sleep. 

Suddenly — but how long after his advent into the boat he could 
not tell — his wits began to return and settle themselves, like wild 
birds flocking again after a scare. Swiftly he took in the scene N 
The blue waters of the bay around him, the deck of a schooner 
on which he stood, the Whitehall boat alongside, and an enormous 
man with a face like a setting moon wrangling with his friend in 
the sweater — no longer iridescent. 

“What do you call it?” shouted the red man. “I want able sea- 
men — I don’t Agger on working this boat with dancing masters, do 
I? We ain’t exactly doing quadrilles on my quarterdeck. If we 
don’t look out we’ll step on this thing and break it. It ain’t ought to 
be let around loose without its ma.” 

“Rot that,” vociferated the brown sweater. “I tell you he’s one 
of the best sailor men on the front. If he ain’t we’ll forfeit the 
money. Come on, Captain Kitchell, we made show enough gettin’ 
away as it was, and this daytime business ain’t our line. D’you 
sign or not? Here’s the advance note. I got to duck my nut or 
I’ll have the patrol boat after me.” 

“I’ll sign this once,” growled the other, scrawling his name on 
the note; “but if this swab ain’t up to sample, he’ll come back by 
freight, an’ I’ll drop in on mee dear friend Jim when we come back 
and give him a reel nice time, an’ you can lay to that, Billy Trim.” 
The brown sweater pocketed the note, went over the side, and rowed 
off. 

Wilbur stood in the waist of a schooner anchored in the stream 
well off Fisherman’s wharf. In the forward part of the schooner 
a Chinaman in brown duck was mixing paint. Wilbur was con- 
scious that he still wore his high hat and long coat, but his stick 
was gone and one gray glove was slit to the button. In front of 
him towered the enormous red-faced man. A pungent reek of some 
kind of rancid fat or oil assailed his nostrils. Over by Alcatraz a 
ferry-boat whistled for its slip as it elbowed its way through the 
water. 

Wilbur had himself fairly in hand by now. His wits were all 
about him ; but the situation was beyond him as yet. 

“Git for’d,” commanded the big man. 


Shanghaied 143 

Wilbur drew himself up, angry in an instant. “Look here,” he 
j began, “what’s the meaning of this business? I know I’ve been 
drugged and mishandled. I demand to be put ashore. Do you 
understand that?” 

“Angel child,” whimpered the big man. “Oh, you lilee of the 
vallee, you bright an’ mornin’ star. I’m reely pained y’know, that 
your vally can’t come along, but we’ll have your piano set up in the 
lazarette. It gives me genuine grief, it do, to see you bein’ obliged 
to put your lilee white feet on this here vulgar an’ dirtee deck. 
We’ll have the Wilton carpet down by to-morrer, so we will, my 
dear. Yah-h!” he suddenly broke out, as his rage boiled over. 
“Git for’d, d’ye hear! I’m captain of this here bathtub, an’ that’s 
all you need to know for a good while to come. I ain’t generally 
got to tell that to a man but once; but I’ll stretch the point just for 
love of you, angel child. Now, then, move!” 

Wilbur stood motionless — puzzled beyond expression. No ex- 
perience he had ever been through helped in this situation. 

“Look here,” he began, “I — ” 

The captain knocked him down with a blow of one enormous fist 
upon the mouth, and while he was yet stretched upon the deck kicked 
him savagely in the stomach. Then he allowed him to rise, caught 
him by the neck and the slack of his overcoat, and ran him forward 
to where a hatchway, not two feet across, opened in the deck. 
Without ado, he flung him down into the darkness below ; and while 
Wilbur, dizzied by the fall, sat on the floor at the foot of the vertical 
companion-ladder, gazing about him with distended eyes, there 
rained down upon his head, first an oilskin coat, then a sou’wester, 
a pair of oilskin breeches, woolen socks, and a plug of tobacco. 
Above him, down the contracted square of the hatch, came the 
bellowing of the Captain’s voice : 

“There’s your fit-out, Mister Lilee of the Vallee, which the 
same our dear friend Jim makes a present of and no charge, be- 
cause he loves you so. You’re allowed two minutes to change, 
an’ it is to be hoped as how you won’t force me to come for 
to assist.” 

It would have been interesting to have followed, step by step, 
the mental process that now took place in Ross Wilbur’s brain. 
The Captain had given him two minutes in which to change. The 
time was short enough, but even at that Wilbur changed more than 
his clothes during the two minutes he was left to himself in the 
reeking dark of the schooner’s fo’castle. It was more than a change 


144 Moran of the Lady Letty 

— it was a revolution. What he made up his mind to do — precisely 
what mental attitude he decided to adopt, just what new niche he 
elected wherein to set his feet, it is difficult to say. Only by results 
could the change be guessed at. He went down the forward hatch 
at the toe of Kitchell’s boot — silk-hatted, melton-overcoated, patent- 
booted, and gloved in suedes. Two minutes later there emerged 
upon the deck a figure in oilskins and a sou’wester. There was 
blood upon the face of him and the grime of an unclean ship upon 
his bare hands. It was Wilbur, and yet not Wilbur. In two min- 
utes he had been, in a way, born again. The only traces of his 
former self were the patent-leather boots, still persistent in their 
gloss and shine, that showed grim incongruity below the vast 
compass of the oilskin breeches. 

As Wilbur came on deck he saw the crew of the schooner hur- 
rying forward, six of them, Chinamen every one, in brown jeans 
and black felt hats. On the quarterdeck stood the Captain, barking 
his orders. 

“Consider the Lilee of the Vallee,” bellowed the latter, as his 
eye fell upon Wilbur the Transformed. “Clap on to that starboard 
windlass brake, sonny.” 

Wilbur saw the Chinamen ranging themselves about what he 
guessed was the windlass in the schooner’s bow. He followed and 
took his place among them, grasping one of the bars. 

“Break down !” came the next order. Wilbur and the Chinamen 
obeyed, bearing up and down upon the bars till the slack of the 
anchor-chain came home and stretched taut and dripping from the 
hawse-holes. 

“ ’Vast heavin’ !” 

And then as Wilbur released the brake and turned about for 
the next order, he cast his glance out upon the bay, and there, not 
a hundred and fifty yards away, her spotless sails tense, her cordage 
humming, her immaculate flanks slipping easily through the waves, 
the water hissing and churning under her forefoot, clean, gleam- 
ing, dainty, and aristocratic, the Ridgeways’ yacht “Petrel” passed 
like a thing of life. Wilbur saw Nat Ridgeway himself at the 
wheel. Girls in smart gowns and young fellows in white ducks 
and yachting caps — all friends of his — crowded the decks. A little 
orchestra of musicians were reeling off a quickstep. 

The popping of a cork and a gale of talk and laughter came to 
his ears. Wilbur stared at the picture, his face devoid of expres- 
sion. The “Petrel” came on — drew nearer — was not a hundred 


Shanghaied 145 

feet away from the schooner’s stern. A strong swimmer, such as 
Wilbur, could cover the distance in a few strides. Two minutes 
ago Wilbur might have — 

“Set your mains’l,” came the bellow of Captain Kitchell. “Clap 
on to your throat and peak halyards.” 

The Chinamen hurried aft. 

Wilbur followed. 


G— IV— Norris 


146 


Moran of the Lady Letty 


II 


A NAUTICAL EDUCATION. 

In the course of the next few moments, while the little vessel 
was being got under way, and while the Ridgeways’ “Petrel” 
gleamed off into the blue distance, Wilbur made certain observa- 
tions. 

The name of the boat on which he found himself was the 
“Bertha Millner.” She was a two-topmast, 28-ton keel schooner, 
40 feet long, carrying a large spread of sail — mainsail, foresail, jib, 
flying-jib, two gaff -topsails, and a staysail. She was very dirty 
and smelt abominably of some kind of rancid oil. Her crew were 
Chinamen ; there was no mate. But the cook — himself a Chinaman 
— who appeared from time to time at the door of the galley, a pota- 
to-masher in his hand, seemed to have some sort of authority over 
the hands. He acted in a manner as a go-between for the Captain 
and the crew, sometimes interpreting the former’s orders, and 
occasionally giving one of his own. 

Wilbur heard the Captain address him as Charlie. He spoke 
pigeon English fairly. Of the balance of the crew — the five China- 
men — Wilbur could make nothing. They never spoke, neither to 
Captain Kitchell, to Charlie, nor to each other ; and for all the 
notice they took of Wilbur he might easily have been a sack of 
sand. Wilbur felt that his advent on the “Bertha Millner” was by 
its very nature an extraordinary event ; but the absolute indifference 
of these brown-suited Mongols, the blankness of their flat, fat faces, 
the dulness of their slanting, fishlike eyes that never met his own 
or even wandered in his direction, was uncanny, disquieting. In 
what strange venture was he now to be involved, toward what un- 
known vortex was this new current setting, this current that had 
so suddenly snatched him from the solid ground of his accustomed 
life? 

He told himself grimly that he was to have a free cruise up the 
bay, perhaps as far as Alviso ; perhaps the “Bertha Millner” would 
even make the circuit of the bay before returning to San Francisco. 
He might be gone a week. Wilbur could already see the scare- 


A Nautical Education 


147 

heads of the daily papers the next morning, chronicling the disap- 
pearance of “One of Society’s Most Popular Members.” 

“That’s well, y’r throat halyards. Here, Lilee of the Vallee, 
give a couple of pulls on y’r peak halyard purchase.” 

Wilbur stared at the Captain helplessly. 

“No can tell, hey?” inquired Charlie from the galley. “Pullum 
disa lope, sabe?” 

Wilbur tugged at the rope the cook indicated. 

“That’s well, y’r peak halyard purchase,” chanted Captain 
Kitchell. 

Wilbur made the rope fast. The mainsail was set, and hung 
slatting and flapping in the wind. Next the for’sail was set in 
much the same manner, and Wilbur was ordered to “lay out on 
the ji’boom and cast the gaskets off the jib.” He “lay out” as best 
he could and cast off the gaskets — he knew barely enough of yacht- 
ing to understand an order here and there — and by the time he was 
back on the fo’c’sle head the Chinamen were at the jib halyard and 
hoisting away. 

“That’s well, y’r jib halyards.” 

The “Bertha Millner” veered round and played off to the wind, 
tugging at her anchor. 

“Man y’r windlass.” 

Wilbur and the crew jumped once more to the brakes. 

“Brake down, heave y’r anchor to the cathead.” 

The anchor-chain, already taut, vibrated and then cranked 
through the hawse-holes as the hands rose and fell at the brakes. 
The anchor came home, dripping gray slime. A nor’west wind 
filled the schooner’s sails, a strong ebb tide caught her under- 
foot. 

“We’re off,” muttered Wilbur, as the “Bertha Millner” heeled 
to the first gust. 

But evidently the schooner was not bound up the bay. 

“Must be Vallejo or Benicia, then,” hazarded Wilbur, as the 
sails grew tenser and the water rippled ever louder under the 
schooner’s forefoot. “Maybe they’re going after hay or wheat.” 

The schooner was tacking, headed directly for Meiggs’s wharf. 
She came in closer and closer, so close that Wilbur could hear the 
talk of the fishermen sitting on the stringpieces. He had just made 
up his mind that they were to make a landing there, when — ” 

“Stand by for stays,” came the raucous bark of the Captain, who 
had taken the wheel. The sails slatted furiously as the schooner 


148 


Moran of the Lady Letty 

came about. Then the “Bertha Millner” caught the wind again 
and lay over quietly and contentedly to her work. The next tack 
brought the schooner close under Alcatraz. The sea became 
heavier, the breeze grew stiff and smelled of the outside ocean. 
Out beyond them to westward opened the Golden Gate, a bleak vista 
of gray-green water roughened with white-caps. 

“Stand by for stays.” 

Once again as the rudder went hard over, the “Bertha Millner’' 
fretted and danced and shook her sails, calling impatiently for the 
wind, chafing at its absence like a child reft of a toy. Then again 
she scooped the nor’wester in the hollow palms of her tense can- 
vases and settled quietly down on the new tack, her bowsprit point- 
ing straight toward the Presidio. 

“We’ll come about again soon,” Wilbur told himself, “and stand 
over toward the Contra Costa shore.” 

A fine huge breath of wind passed over the schooner. She 
heeled it on the instant, the water roaring along her quarter, but 
she kept her course. Wilbur fell thoughtful again, never more 
keenly observant. 

“She must come about soon,” he muttered uneasily, “if she’s 
going to stand up toward Vallejo.” His heart sank with a sudden 
apprehension. A nervousness he could not overcome seized upon 
him. The “Bertha Millner” held tenaciously to the tack. Within 
fifty yards of the Presidio came the command again : 

“Stand by for stays.” 

Once more, her bows dancing, her cordage rattling, her sails 
flapping noisily, the schooner came about. Anxiously Wilbur ob- 
served the bowsprit as it circled like a hand on a dial, watching 
where now it would point. It wavered, fluctuated, rose, fell, then 
settled easily, pointing toward Lime Point. Wilbur felt a sudden 
coldness at his heart. 

“This isn’t going to be so much fun,” he muttered between his 
teeth. The schooner was not bound up the bay for Alviso nor to 
Vallejo for grain. The track toward Lime Point could mean but 
one thing. The wind was freshening from the nor’west, the ebb 
tide rushing out to meet the ocean like a mill-race, at every moment 
the Golden Gate opened out wider, and within two minutes after 
the time of the last tack the “Bertha Millner” heeled to a great gust 
that had come booming in between the heads, straight from the open 
Pacific. 

“Stand by for stays.” 


A Nautical Education 


149 

As before, one of the Chinese hands stood by the sail rope of 
the jib. 

“Draw y’r jib.” 

The jib filled. The schooner came about on the port tack; Lime 
Point fell away over the stern rail. The huge ground swells began 
to come in, and as she rose and bowed to the first of these it was 
precisely as though the “Bertha Millner” were making her courtesy 
to the great gray ocean, now for the first time in full sight on her 
starboard quarter. 

The schooner was beating out to sea through the Middle Chan- 
nel. Once clear of the Golden Gate, she stood over toward the Cliff 
House, then on the next tack cleared Point Bonita. The sea began 
building up in deadly earnest — they were about to cross the bar. 
Everything was battened down, the scuppers were awash, and the 
hawse-holes spouted like fountains after every plunge. Once the 
Captain ordered all men aloft, just in time to escape a gigantic dull 
green roller that broke like a Niagara over the schooner’s bows, 
smothering the decks knee-deep in a twinkling. 

The wind blew violent and cold, the spray was flying like icy 
small-shot. Without intermission the “Bertha Millner” rolled and 
plunged and heaved and sank. Wilbur was drenched to the skin 
and sore in every joint, from being shunted from rail to mast and 
from mast to rail again. The cordage sang like harp-strings, the 
schooner’s forefoot crushed down into the heaving water with a 
hissing like that of steam, blocks rattled, the Captain bellowed his 
orders, rope-ends flogged the hollow deck till it reverberated like a 
drum-head. The crossing of the bar was one long half-hour of con- 
fusion and discordant sound. 

When they were across the bar the Captain ordered the cook to 
give the men their food. 

“Git for’rd, sonny,” he added, fixing Wilbur with his eye. “Git 
for’rd, this is tawble dee hote, savvy?” 

Wilbur crawled forward on the reeling deck, holding on now to 
a mast, now to a belaying-pin, now to a stay, watching his chance 
and going on between the inebriated plunges of the schooner. 

He descended the fo’c’sle hatch. The Chinamen were already 
there, sitting on the edges of their bunks. On the floor, at the bot- 
tom of the ladder, punk-sticks were, burning in an old tomato-can. 

Charlie brought in supper — stewed beef and pork in a bread- 
pan and a wooden kit — and the Chinamen ate in silence with their 
sheath-knives and from tin plates. A liquid that bore a distant re- 


150 Moran of the Lady Letty 

semblance to coffee was served. Wilbur learned afterward to 
know the stuff as Black Jack, and to be aware that it was made 
from bud barley and was sweetened with molasses. A single reek- 
ing lamp swung with the swinging of the schooner over the centre 
of the group, and long after Wilbur could remember the grisly 
scene — the punk-sticks, the bread-pan full of hunks of meat, the 
horrid close and oily smell, and the circle of silent, preoccupied 
Chinese, each sitting on his bunk-ledge, devouring stewed pork 
and holding his pannikin of Black Jack between his feet against the 
rolling of the boat. 

Wilbur looked fearfully at the mess in the pan, recalling the 
chocolate and stuffed olives that had been his last luncheon. 

“Well,” he muttered, clinching his teeth, "I’ve got to come to 
it sooner or later.” His penknife was in the pocket of his waist- 
coat, underneath his oilskin coat. He opened the big blade, har- 
pooned a cube of pork, and deposited it on his tin plate. He ate it 
slowly and with savage determination. But the Black Jack was 
more than he could bear. 

“I'm not hungry enough for that just now/’ he told himself. 
“Say, Jim,” he said, turning to the Chinaman next him on the bunk- 
ledge, “say, what kind of boat is this? What you do — where you 
go?” 

The other moved away impatiently. 

“No sabe, no sabe,” he answered, shaking his head and frown- 
ing. Throughout the whole of that strange meal these were the 
only words spoken. 

When Wilbur came on deck again he noted that the “Bertha 
Millner” had already left the whistling-buoy astern. Off to the 
east, her sails just showing above the waves, was a pilot-boat with 
the number 7 on her mainsail. The evening was closing in; the 
Farallones were in plain sight dead ahead. Far behind, in a mass 
of shadow just bluer than the sky, he could make out a few twink- 
ling lights — San Francisco. 

Half an hour later Kitchell came on deck from his supper in the 
cabin aft. He glanced in the direction of the mainland, now almost 
out of sight, then took the wheel from one of the Chinamen and 
commanded, “Ease off y’r fore an’ main sheets.” The hands eased 
away and the schooner played off before the wind. 

The staysail was set. The “Bertha Millner” headed to south- 
west, bowling easily ahead of a good eight-knot breeze. 

Next came the order “All hands aft!” and Wilbur and his mates 


A Nautical Education 


I S 1 

betook themselves to the quarterdeck. Charlie took the wheel, and 
he and Kitchell began to choose the men for their watches, just as 
Wilbur remembered to have chosen sides for baseball during his 
school days. 

“Sonny, I’ll choose you ; you’re on my watch,” said the Captain 
to Wilbur, and I will assoom the ree-sponsibility of your nautical 
eddoocation.” 

“I may as well tell you at once,” began Wilbur, “that I’m no 
sailor.” 

“But you will be, soon,” answered the Captain, at once sooth- 
ing and threatening; “you will be, Mister Lilee of the Vallee, you 
kin lay to it as how you will be one of the best sailormen along 
the front, as our dear friend Jim says. Before I git throo with you, 
you’ll be a sailorman or shark-bait, I can promise you. You’re on 
my watch; step over here, son.” 

The watches were divided, Charlie and three other Chinamen 
on the port, Kitchell, Wilbur, and two Chinamen on the starboard. 
The men trooped forward again. 

The tiny world of the schooner had lapsed to quiet. The “Bertha 
Millner” was now clear of the land, that lay like a blur of faintest 
purple smoke — ever growing fainter — low in the east. The Faral- 
lones showed but their shoulders above the horizon. The schooner 
was standing well out from shore — even beyond the track of the 
coasters and passenger steamers — to catch the Trades from the north- 
west. The sun was setting royally, and the floor of the ocean 
shimmered like mosaic. The sea had gone down and the fury of 
the bar was a thing forgotten. It was perceptibly warmer. 

On board, the two watches mingled forward, smoking opium 
and playing a game that looked like checkers. Three of them 
were washing down the decks with kaiar brooms. For the first 
time since he had come on board Wilbur heard the sound of 
their voices. 

The evening was magnificent. Never to Wilbur’s eyes had the 
Pacific appeared so vast, so radiant, so divinely beautiful. A star 
or two burned slowly through that part of the sky where the pink 
began to fade into the blue. Charlie went forward and set the 
side lights — red on the port rigging, green on the starboard. As he 
passed Wilbur, who was leaning over the rail and watching the 
phosphorus flashing just under the surface, he said: 

“Hey, you go talkee-talk one-piecey Boss, savvy Boss — chin- 
chin.” 


152 Moran of the Lady Letty 

Wilbur went aft and came up on the poop, where Kitchell stood 
at the wheel, smoking an inverted “Tarrier’s Delight.” 

“Now, son,” began Kitchell, “I natch’ly love you so that I’m 
goin’ to do you a reel favor, do you twig? I’m goin’ to allow you to 
berth aft in the cabin, ’long o’ me an’ Charlie, an’ beesides you can 
make free of my quarterdeck. Mebbee you ain’t used to the ways 
of sailormen just yet, but you can lay to it that those two are reel 
concessions, savvy? I ain’t a mush-head, like mee dear friend Jim. 
You ain’t no water-front swine, I can guess that with one hand tied 
beehind me. You’re a toff, that’s what you are, and your lines has 
been laid for toffs. I ain’t askin’ you no questions, but you got 
brains, an’ I figger on gettin’ more outa you by lettin’ you have y’r 
head a bit. But mind, now, you get gay once, sonny, or try to 
flimflam me, or forget that I’m the boss of the bathtub, an’ strike 
me blind, I’ll cut you open, an’ you can lay to that, son. Now, then, 
here’s the game : You work this boat ’long with the coolies, an’ take 
my orders, an’ walk chalk, an’ I’ll teach you navigation, an’ make 
this cruise as easy as how-do-you-do. You don’t, an’ I’ll manhandle 
you till y’r bones come throo y’r hide.” 

“I’ve no choice in the matter,” said Wilbur. “I’ve got to make 
the best of a bad situation.” 

“I ree-marked as how you had brains,” muttered the Captain. 

“But there’s one thing,” continued Wilbur; “if I’m to have my 
head a little, as you say, you’ll find we can get along better if you 
put me to rights about this whole business. Why was I brought 
aboard, why are there only Chinese along, where are we going, 
what are we going to do, and how long are we going to be gone?” 

Kitchell spat over the side, and then sucked the nicotine from 
his mustache. 

“Well,” he said, resuming his pipe, “it’s like this, son. This ship 
belongs to one of the Six Chinese Companies of Chinatown in 
Frisco. Charlie, here, is one of the shareholders in the business. 
We go down here twice a year off Cape Sain’ Lucas, Lower Cali- 
fornia, an’ fish for blue sharks, or white, if we kin ketch ’em. We 
get the livers of these an’ try out the oil, an’ we bring back that 
same oil, an’ the Chinamen sell it all over San Francisco as simon- 
pure cod-liver oil, savvy? An’ it pays like a nitrate bed. I come 
in because it’s a Custom-house regulation that no coolie can take 
a boat out of Frisco.” 

“And how do I come in?” asked Wilbur. 

“Mee dear friend Jim put a knock-me-out drop into your Man- 


A Nautical Education 


153 

hattan cocktail. It’s a capsule filled with a drug. You were 
shanghaied, • son,” said the Captain, blandly. 


About an hour later Wilbur turned in. Kitchell showed him his 
bunk with its “donkey’s breakfast” and single ill-smelling blanket. 
It was located under the companionway that led down into the 
cabin. Kitchell bunked on one side, Charlie on the other. A hacked 
deal table, covered with oilcloth and ironed to the floor, a swinging- 
lamp, two chairs, a rack of books, a chest or two, and a flaring pic- 
ture cut from the advertisement of a ballet, was the room’s inven- 
tory in the matter of furniture and ornament. 

Wilbur sat on the edge of his buok before undressing, review- 
ing the extraordinary events of the day. In a moment he was 
aware of a movement in one of the other two bunks, and presently 
made out Charlie lying on his side and holding in the flame of an 
alcohol lamp a skewer on which some brown and sticky stuff boiled 
and sizzled. He transformed the stuff to the bowl of a huge pipe 
and drew on it noisily once or twice. In another moment he had 
sunk back in his bunk, nearly senseless, but with a long breath of 
an almost blissful contentment. 

“Beast!” muttered Wilbur, with profound disgust. 

He threw off his oilskin coat and felt in the pocket of his waist- 
coat (which he had retained when he had changed his clothes in 
the fo’c’sle) for his watch. He drew it out. It was just nine 
o’clock. All at once an idea occurred to him. He fumbled in an- 
other pocket of the waistcoat and brought out one of his calling- 
cards. 

For a moment Wilbur remained motionless, seated on the bunk- 
ledge, smiling grimly, while his glance wandered now to the sordid 
cabin of the “Bertha Millner” and the opium-drugged coolie 
sprawled on the “donkey’s breakfast,” and now to the card in his 
hand on which a few hours ago he had written: 

“First waltz — Jo.” 


X S4 


Moran of the Lady Letty 


III 

THE LADY LETTY 

Another day passed, then two. Before Wilbur knew it he had 
settled himself to his new life, and woke one morning to the real- 
ization that he was positively enjoying himself. Daily the weather 
grew warmer. The fifth day out from San Francisco it was actu- 
ally hot. The pitch grew soft in the “Bertha Millner’s” deck seams, 
the masts sweated resin. The Chinamen went about the decks wear- 
ing but their jeans and blouses. Kitchell had long since abandoned 
his coat and vest. Wilbur’s oilskins became intolerable, and he was 
at last constrained to trade his pocket-knife to Charlie for a suit of 
jeans and wicker sandals, -such as the coolies wore — and odd enough 
he looked in them. 

The Captain instructed him in steering, and even promised to 
show him the use of the sextant and how to take an observation in 
the fake short and easy coasting style of navigation. Furthermore, 
he showed him how to read the log and the manner of keeping the 
dead reckoning. 

During most of his watches Wilbur was engaged in painting the 
inside of the cabin, door panels, lintels, and the few scattered mold- 
ings ; and toward the middle of the first week out, when the “Bertha 
Millner” was in the latitude of Point Conception, he and three 
Chinamen, under Kitchell’s directions, ratlined down the forerig- 
ging and affixed the crow’s nest upon the for’mast. The next 
morning, during Charlie’s watch on deck, a Chinaman was sent 
up into the crow’s nest, and from that time on there was always a 
lookout maintained from the masthead. 

More than once Wilbur looked around him at the empty corus- 
cating indigo of the ocean floor, wondering at the necessity of the 
lookout, and finally expressed his curiosity to Kitchell. The Cap- 
tain had now taken not a little to Wilbur; at first for the sake of 
a white man’s company, and afterward because he began to place 
a certain vague reliance upon Wilbur’s judgment. Kitchell had ree- 
marked as how he had brains. 

“Well, you see, son,” Kitchell had explained to Wilbur, “os-ten- 


The Lady Letty 155 

siblee we are after shark-liver oil — and so we are ; but also we are 
on any lay that turns up; ready for any game, from wrecking to 
barratry. Strike me, if I haven’t thought of scuttling the dough- 
dish for her insoorance. There’s regular trade, son, to be done in 
ships, and then there’s pickin’s an’ pickin’s an’ pickin’s. Lord, the 
ocean’s rich with pickin’s. Do you know there’s millions made out 
of the day-bree and refuse of a big city? How about an ocean’s 
day-bree, just chew on that notion a turn; an’ as fur a lookout, 
lemmee tell you, son, cast your eye out yon,” and he swept the sea 
with a forearm ; “nothin’, hey, so it looks, but lemmee tell you, son, 
there ain’t no manner of place on the ball of dirt where you’re likely 
to run up afoul of so many things — unexpected things — as at sea. 
When you’re clear o’ land lay to this here pree-cep’, 'A million to 
one on the unexpected.’ ” 

The next day fell almost dead calm. The hale, lustv-lunged 
nor’wester that had snorted them forth from the Golden Gate had 
lapsed to a zephyr, the schooner rolled lazily southward with the 
leisurely nonchalance of a grazing ox. At noon, just after dinner, 
a few cat’s-paws curdled the milky-blue whiteness of the glassy 
surface, and the water once more began to talk beneath the bow- 
sprit. It was very hot. The sun spun silently like a spinning brass 
discus over the mainmast. On the fo’csle head the Chinamen were 
asleep or smoking opium. It was Charlie’s watch. Kitchell dozed 
in his hammock in the shadow of the mainsheet. Wilbur was below 
tinkering with his paint-pot about the cabin. The stillness was 
profound. It was the stillness of the summer sea at high noon. 

The lookout in the crow’s nest broke the quiet. 

“Hy-vah, hy-yah !” he cried, leaning from the barrel and calling 
through an arched palm. “Hy-yah, one two, plenty, many tortle, 
topside, wattah ; hy-yah, all-same tortle.” 

“Hello, hello!” cried the Captain, rolling from his hammock. 
“Turtle ? Where-away ?” 

“I tink-um ’bout quallah mile, mebbee, four-piecee tortle all-same 
weatha bow.” 

“Turtle, hey? Down y’r wheel, Jim, haul y’r jib to win’ward,” 
he commanded the man at the wheel; then to the men forward: 
“Get the dory overboard. Son, Charlie, and you, Wing, tumble in. 
Wake up now and see you stay so.” 

The dory was swung over the side, and the men dropped into her 
and took their places at the oars. “Give way,” cried the Captain, 
settling himself in the bow with the gaff in his hand. “Hey, Jim !” 


156 Moran of the Lady Letty 

he shouted to the lookout far above, “hey, lay our course for us.” 
The lookout nodded, the oars fell, and the dory shot forward in the 
direction indicated by the lookout. 

“Kin you row, son? asked Kitchell, with sudden suspicion. 
Wilbur smiled. 

“You ask Charlie and Wing to ship their oars and give me a 
pair.” The Captain complied, hesitating. 

“Now, what/’ he said grimly, “now, what do you think you’re 
going to do, sonny?” 

“I’m going to show you the Bob Cook stroke we used in our 
boat in ’95, when we beat Harvard,” answered Wilbur. 

Kitchell gazed doubtfully at the first few strokes, then with 
growing interest watched the tremendous reach, the powerful knee- 
drive, the swing, the easy catch, and the perfect recover. The dory 
was cutting the water like a gasoline launch, and between strokes 
there was the least possible diminishing of the speed. 

“I’m a bit out of form just now,” remarked Wilbur, “and I’m 
used to the sliding seat ; but I guess it’ll do.” Kitchell glanced at 
the human machine that once was No. 5 in the Yale boat and then 
at the water hissing from the dory’s bows. “My Gawd!” he said, 
under his breath. He spat over the bows and sucked the nicotine 
from his mustache, thoughtfully. 

“I ree-marked,” he observed, “as how you had brains, my son.” 

A few minutes later the Captain, who was standing in the dory’s 
bow and alternately conning the ocean’s surface and looking back 
to the Chinaman standing on the schooner’s masthead, uttered an 
exclamation : 

“Steady, ship your oars, quiet now, quiet, you damn fools! 
We’re right on ’em ; — four, by Gawd, an’ big as dinin’ tables !” 

The oars were shipped. The dory's speed dwindled. “Out your 
paddles, sit on the gun’l, and paddle ee-asy.” The hands obeyed. 
The Captain’s voice dropped to a whisper. His back was toward 
them and he gestured with one free hand. Looking out over the 
water from his seat on the gun’l, Wilbur could make out a round, 
greenish mass like a patch of floating seaweed, just under the sur- 
face, some sixty yards ahead. 

“Easy sta’board,” whispered the Captain under his elbow. “Go 
ahead, port; e-e-easy all, steady, steady.” 

The affair began to assume the intensity of a little drama — a 
little drama of midocean. In spite of himself, Wilbur was excited. 
He even found occasion to observe that the life was not so bad, 


The Lady Letty 157 

after all. This was as good fun as stalking deer. The dory moved 
forward by inches. Kitchell’s whisper was as faint as a dying 
infant’s: “Steady all, s-stead-ee, sh-stead — ” 

He lunged forward sharply with the gaff, and shouted aloud: 
“I got him — grab holt his tail flippers, you fool swabs ; grab holt 
quick — don’t you leggo — got him there, Charlie? If he gets away, 
you swine, I’ll rip y’ open with the gaff — heave now — heave — there 
— there — soh, stand clear his nippers. Strike me! he’s a whacker. 
I thought he was going to get away. Saw me just as I swung the 
gaff, an’ ducked his nut.” 

Over the side, bundled without ceremony into the boat, clawing, 
thrashing, clattering, and blowing like the exhaust of a donkey- 
engine, tumbled the great green turtle, his wet, green shield of shell 
three feet from edge to edge, the gaff firmly transfixed in his body, 
just under the fore-flipper. From under his shell protruded his 
snake-like head and neck, withered like that of an old man. He 
was waving his head from side to side, the jaws snapping like a 
snapped silk handkerchief. Kitchell thrust him away with a paddle. 
The turtle craned his neck, and catching the bit of wood in his jaw, 
bit it in two in a single grip. 

“I tol’ you so, I tol’ you to stand clear his snapper. If that had 
been your shin now, eh? Hello, what’s that?” 

Faintly across the water came a prolonged hallooing from the 
schooner. Kitchell stood up in the dory, shading his eyes with his 
hat. 

“What’s biting ’em now ?” he muttered, with the uneasiness of a 
captain away from his ship. “Oughta left Charlie on board — or 
you, son. Who’s doin’ that yellin’, I can’t make out.” 

“Up in the crow’s nest,” exclaimed Wilbur. “It’s Jim, see, he’s 
waving his arms.” 

“Well, whaduz he wave his dam’ fool arms for?” growled Kitch- 
ell, angry because something was going forward he did not under- 
stand. 

“There, he’s shouting again. Listen — I can’t make out what he’s 
yelling.” 

“He’ll yell to a different pipe when I get my grip of him. I’ll 
twist the head of that swab till he’ll have to walk back’ard to see 
where he’s goin’. Whaduz he wave his arms for — whaduz he yell 
like a dam’ philly-loo bird for ? What’s him say, Charlie ?” 

“Jim heap sing, no can tell. Mebbee— tinkum sing, come back 
chop-chop.” 


1 58 Moran of the Lady Letty 

“We’ll see. Oars out, men, give way. Now, son, put a little o’ 
that Yale stingo in the stroke.” 

In the crow’s nest Jim still yelled and waved like one distraught, 
while the dory returned at a smart clip toward the schooner. Kitch- 
ell lathered with fury. 

“Oh-h,” he murmured softly through his gritted teeth. “Jess 
lemmee lay mee two hands afoul of you wunst, you gibbering, yel- 
low philly-loo bird, believe me, you’ll dance. Shut up !” he roared ; 
“shut up, you crazy do-do, ain’t we coming fast as we can?” 

The dory bumped alongside, and the Captain was over the rail 
like quicksilver. The hands were all in the bow, looking and point- 
ing to the west. Jim slid down the ratlines, bubbling over with sup- 
pressed news. Before his feet had touched the -deck Kitchell had 
kicked him into the stays again, fulminating blasphemies. 

“Sing!” he shouted, as the Chinaman clambered away like a 
bewildered ape; “sing a little more. I would if I were you. Why 
don’t you sing and wave, you dam’ fool philly-loo bird ?” 

“Yas, sah,” answered the coolie. 

“What you yell for? Charlie, ask him whaffo him sing.” 

“I tink-um ship,” answered Charlie calmly, looking out over the 
starboard quarter. 

“Ship!” 

“Him velly sick,” hazarded the Chinaman from the ratlines, add- 
ing a sentence in Chinese to Charlie. 

“He says he tink-um ship sick, all same; ask um something — 
ship velly sick.” 

By this time the Captain, Wilbur, and all on board could plainly 
make out a sail some eight miles off the starboard bow. Even at 
that distance, and to eyes so inexperienced as those of Wilbur, it 
needed but a glance to know that something was wrong with her. 
It was not that she failed to ride the waves with even keel, it was 
not that her rigging was in disarray, nor that her sails were dis- 
ordered. Her distance was too great to make out such details. 
But in precisely the same manner as a trained physician glances at 
a doomed patient, and from that indefinable look in the face of 
him and the eyes of him pronounces the verdict “death,” so Kitchell 
took in the stranger with a single comprehensive glance, and ex- 
claimed : 

“Wreck!” 

“Yas, sah. I tink-um velly sick.” 

“Oh, go to ’ll, or go below and fetch up my glass — hustle !” 


The Lady Letty 159 

The glass was brought. “Son,” exclaimed Kitchell— “where is 
that man with the brains? Son, come aloft here with me.” The 
two clambered up the ratlines to the crow’s nest. Kitchell adjusted 
the glass. 

She s a bark/ he muttered, “iron built — about seven hundred 
tons, I guess — in distress. There’s her ensign upside down at the 
mizz nhead — looks like Norway — an’ her distress signals on the 
spanker gaff. Take a blink at her, son — what do you make her out ? 
Lord, she’s ridin’ high.” 

Wilbur took the glass, catching the stranger after several clumsy 
attempts. She was, as Captain Kitchell had announced, a bark, and, 
to judge by her flag, evidently Norwegian. 

“How she rolls!” muttered Wilbur. 

“That’s what I can’t make out,” answered Kitchell. “A bark 
such as she ain’t ought to roll thata way; her ballast’d steady her.” 

“What’s the flags on that boom aft — one’s red and white and 
square-shaped, and the other’s the same color, only swallow-tail in 
shape?” 

“That’s H. B., meanin’: T am in need of assistance.’” 

“Well, where’s the crew? I don’t see anybody on board.” 

“Oh, they’re there right enough.” 

“Then they’re pretty well concealed about the premises,” re- 
turned Wilbur, as he passed the glass to the Captain. 

“She does seem kinda empty,” said the Captain in a moment, 
with a sudden show of interest that Wilbur failed to understand. 

“An’ where’s her boats?” continued Kitchell. “I don’t just quite 
make out any boats at all.” There was a long silence. 

“Seems to be a sort of haze over her,” observed Wilbur. 

“I noticed that, air kinda quivers oily-like. No boats, no boats— 
an’ I can’t see anybody aboard.” Suddenly Kitchell lowered the 
glass and turned to Wilbur. He was a different man. There was 
a new shine in his eyes, a wicked line appeared over the nose, the 
jaw grew salient, prognathous. 

“Son,” he exclaimed, gimleting Wilbur with his contracted 
eyes; “I have reemarked as how you had brains. I kin fool the 
coolies, but I can’t fool you. It looks to me as if that bark yonder 
was a derelict ; an’ do you know what that means to us ? Chaw on 
it a turn.” 

“A derelict?” 

“If there’s a crew on board they’re concealed from the public 
gaze — an’ where are the boats then? I Agger she’s an abandoned 


i6o Moran of the Lady Letty 

derelict. Do you know what that means for us — for you and I? 
It means,” and gripping Wilbur by the shoulders, he spoke the 
word into his face with a savage intensity. “It means salvage, do 
you savvy? — salvage, salvage. Do you figger what salvage on a 
seven-hundred-tonner would come to? Well, just lemmee drop it 
into your think tank, an’ lay to what I say. It’s all the ways from 
fifty to seventy thousand dollars, whatever her cargo is; call it 
sixty thousand — thirty thou’ apiece. Oh, I don’t know!” he ex- 
claimed, lapsing to landman’s slang. “Wha’d I say about a million 
to one on the unexpected at sea ?’ 

“Thirty thousand!” exclaimed Wilbur, without thought as yet. 

“Now y’r singin’ songs,” cried the Captain. “Listen to me, 
son,” he went on, rapidly shutting up the glass and thrusting it 
back in the case ; “my name’s Kitchell, and I’m hog right through.” 
He emphasized the words with a leveled forefinger, his eyes flash- 
ing. H — O — G spells very truly yours, Alvinza Kitchell — ninety- 
nine swine an’ me make a hundred swine. I’m a shoat with both 
feet in the trough, first, last, an’ always. If that bark’s abandoned, 
an’ I says she is, she’s ours. I’m out for anything that there’s stuff 
in. I guess I’m more of a beach-comber by nature than anything 
else. If she’s abandoned she belongs to us. To ’ll with this coolie 
game. We’ll go beach-combin’, you and I. We’ll board that bark 
and work her into the nearest port — San Diego, I guess — and get 
the salvage on her if we have to swim in her. Are you with me?” 
he held out his hand. The man was positively trembling from 
head to heel. It was impossible to resist the excitement of the situ- 
ation, its novelty — the high crow’s nest of the schooner, the keen 
salt air, the Chinamen grouped far below, the indigo of the warm 
ocean, and out yonder the forsaken derelict, rolling her light hull 
till the garboard streak flashed in the sun. 

“Well, of course, I’m with you, Cap,” exclaimed Wilbur, grip- 
ping Kitchell’s hand. “When there’s thirty thousand to be had for 
the asking I guess I’m a ‘na’chel bawn’ beach-comber myself.” 

“Now, nothing about this to the coolies.” 

“But how will you make out with your owners, the Six Com- 
panies ? Aren’t you bound to bring the ‘Bertha’ in ?” 

“Rot my owners !” exclaimed Kitchell. “I ain’t a skipper of no 
oil-boat any longer. I’m a beach-comber.” He fixed the wallow- 
ing bark with glistening eyes. “Gawd strike me,” he murmured, 
“ain’t she a daisy? It’s a little Klondike. Come on, son.” 

The two went down the ratlines, and Kitchell ordered a couple 


i6i 


The Lady Letty 

of the hands into the dory that had been rowing astern. He and 
Wilbur followed. Charlie was left on board, with directions to lay 
the schooner to. The dory flew over the water, Wilbur setting the 
stroke. In a few moments she was well up with the bark. Though 
a larger boat than the “Bertha Millner,” she was rolling in lamenta- 
ble fashion, and every laboring heave showed her bottom incrusted 
with barnacles and seaweed. 

Her fore and main tops’ls and to’gallants’ls were set, as also 
were her lower stays’ls and royals. But the braces seemed to have 
parted, and the yards were swinging back and forth in their ties. 
The spanker was brailed up, and the spanker boom thrashed idly 
over the poop as the bark rolled and rolled and rolled. The main- 
mast was working in its shoe, the rigging and backstays sagged. 
An air of abandonment, of unspeakable loneliness, of abomination 
hung about her. Never had Wilbur seen anything more utterly 
alone. Within three lengths the Captain rose in his place and 
shouted : 

“Bark ahoy!” There was no answer. Thrice he repeated the 
call, and thrice the dismal thrashing of the spanker boom and the 
flapping of the sails was the only answer. Kitchell turned to Wil- 
bur in triumph. “I guess she’s ours,” he whispered. They were 
now close enough to make out the bark’s name upon her counter, 
“Lady Letty,” and Wilbur was in the act of reading it aloud, when 
a huge brown dorsal fin, like the triangular sail of a lugger, cut the 
water between the dory and the bark. 

“Shark!” said Kitchell; “and there’s another!” he exclaimed in 
the next instant, “and another! Strike me, the water’s alive with 
’em'! There’s a stiff on the bark, you can lay to that”; and at that, 
acting on some strange impulse, he called again, “Bark ahoy!” 
There was no response. 

The dory was now well up to the derelict, and pretty soon a 
prolonged and vibratory hissing noise, strident, insistent, smote 
upon their ears. 

“What’s that?” exclaimed Wilbur, perplexed. The Captain 
shook his head, and just then, as the bark rolled almost to her scup- 
pers in their direction, a glimpse of the deck was presented to their 
view. It was only a glimpse, gone on the instant, as the bark 
rolled back to port, but it was time enough for Wilbur and the 
Captain to note the parted and open seams and the deck bulging, 
and in one corner blown up and splintered. 

The captain smote a thigh. 


i 62 


Moran of the Lady Letty 

“Coal !” he cried. “Anthracite coal. The coal he’t up and gen- 
erated gas, of course — no fire, y ’understand, just gas — gas blew up 
the deck — no way of stopping combustion. Naturally they had to 
cut for it. Smell the gas, can’t you? No wonder she’s hissing — 
no wonder she rolled — cargo goes off in gas — and what’s to weigh 
her down? I was wondering what could ’a’ wrecked her in this 
weather. Lord, it’s as plain as Billy-b’damn.” 

The dory was alongside. Kitchell watched his chance, and as 
the bark rolled down caught the mainyard-brace hanging in a bight 
over the rail and swung himself to the deck. “Look sharp!” he 
called, as Wilbur followed. “It won’t do for you to fall among 
them shark, sonj. Just look at the hundreds of ’em. There’s a stiff 
on board, sure.” 

Wilbur steadied himself on the swaying broken deck, choking 
against the reek of coal-gas that hissed upward on every hand. The 
heat was almost like a furnace. Everything metal was intolerable 
to the touch. 

“She’s abandoned, sure,” muttered the Captain. “Look,” and 
he pointed to the empty chocks on the house and the severed lash- 
ings. “Oh, it’s a haul, son.; it’s a haul, an’ you can lay to that. 
Now, then, cabin first,” and he started aft. 

But it was impossible to go into the cabin. The moment the 
door was opened suffocating billows of gas rushed out and beat 
them back. On the third trial the Captain staggered out, almost 
overcome with its volume. 

“Can’t get in there for a while yet,” he gasped, “but I saw the 
stiff on the floor by the table ; looks like the old man. He’s spit his 
false teeth out. I knew there was a stiff aboard.” 

“Then there’s more than one,” said Wilbur. “See there!” 
From behind the wheel-box in the stern protruded a hand and fore- 
arm in an oilskin sleeve. 

Wilbur ran up, peered over the little space between the wheel 
and the wheel-box, and looked straight into a pair of eyes — eyes 
that were alive. Kitchell came up. 

“One left, anyhow,” he muttered, looking over Wilbur’s shoul- 
der ; “sailor man, though ; can’t interfere with our salvage. The 
bark’s derelict, right enough. Shake him out of there, son; can’t 
you see the lad's dotty with the gas?” 

Cramped into the narrow space of the wheel-box like a terrified 
hare in a blind burrow was the figure of a young boy. So firmly 
was he wedged into the corner that Kitchell had to kick down the 


The Lady Letty 163 

box before he could be reached. The boy spoke no word. Stupe- 
fied with the gas, he watched them with vacant eyes. 

Wilbur put a hand under the lad’s arm and got him to his feet. 
He was a tall, well-made fellow, with ruddy complexion and milk- 
blue eyes, and was dressed, as if for heavy weather, in oilskins. 

“Well, sonny, you’ve had a fine mess aboard here,” said Kitchell. 
The boy — he might have been two and twenty — stared and frowned. 

“Clean loco from the gas. Get him into the dory, son. I’ll try 
this bloody cabin again.” 

Kitchell turned back and descended from the poop, and Wilbur, 
his arm around the boy, followed. Kitchell was already out of 
hearing, and Wilbur was bracing himself upon the rolling deck, 
steadying the young fellow at his side, when the latter heaved a 
deep breath. His throat and breast swelled. Wilbur stared sharply, 
with a muttered exclamation: 

“My God, it’s a girl!” he said. 


/ 


164 


Moran of the Lady Letty 


IV 

MORAN 

Meanwhile Charlie had brought the “Bertha Milkier” up to 
within hailing distance of the bark, and had hove her to. Kitchell 
ordered Wilbur to return to the schooner and bring over a couple 
of axes. 

“We’ll have to knock holes all through the house, and break in 
the skylights and let the gas escape before we can do anything. 
Take the kid over and give him whiskey; then come along back 
and bear a hand.” 

Wilbur had considerable difficulty in getting into the dory from 
the deck of the plunging derelict with his dazed and almost helpless 
charge. Even as he slid down the rope into the little boat and 
helped the girl to follow, he was aware of two dull, brownish-green 
shadows moving just beneath the water’s surface not ten feet away, 
and he knew that he was being stealthily watched. The Chinamen 
at the oars of the dory, with that extraordinary absence of curiosity 
which is the mark of the race, did not glance a second time at the 
survivor of the “Lady Letty ’s” misadventure. To them it was evi- 
dent she was but a for’mast hand. However, Wilbur examined her 
with extraordinary interest as she sat in the sternsheets, sullen, 
half-defiant, half-bewildered, and bereft of speech. 

She was not pretty — she was too tall for that — quite as tall as 
Wilbur himself, and her skeleton was too massive. Her face was 
red, and the glint of blue ice was in her eyes. Her eyelashes and 
eyebrows, as well as the almost imperceptible down that edged her 
cheek when she turned against the light, were blond almost to white- 
ness. What beauty she had was of the fine, hardy Norse type. Her 
hands were red and hard, and even beneath the coarse sleeve of the 
oilskin coat one could infer that the biceps and deltoids were large 
and powerful. She was coarse-fibred, no doubt, mentally as well 
as physically, but her coarseness, so Wilbur guessed, would prove 
to be the coarseness of a primitive rather than of a degenerate char- 
acter. 

One thing he saw clearly during the few moments of the dory's 


Moran 


*>7 


trip between bark and schooner — the fact that his charge was a 
woman must be kept from Captain Kitchell. Wilbur knew his 
man by now. It could be done. Kitchell and he would take the 
“Lady Letty” into the nearest port as soon as possible. The decep- 
tion would have to be maintained only for a day or two. 

He left the girl on board the schooner and returned to the 
derelict with the axes. He found Kitchell on the house, just re- 
turned from a hasty survey of the prize. 

“She’s a daisy,” vociferated the Captain, as Wilbur came aboard. 
“I’ve been havin’ a look ’round. She’s brand-new. See the date 
on the capst’n-head ? Christiania is her hailin’ port — built there; 
but it’s her papers I’m after. Then we’ll know where we’re at. 
How’s the kid?” 

“She’s all right,” answered Wilbur, before he could collect his 
thoughts. But the Captain thought he had reference to the “Ber- 
tha.” 

“I mean the kid we found in the wheel-box. He doesn’t count 
in our salvage. The bark’s been abandoned as plain as paint. If 
I thought he stood in our way,” and Kitchell’s jaw grew salient, 
“I’d shut him in the cabin with the old man a spell, till he’d copped 
off. Now then, son, first thing to do is to chop vents in this yere 
house.” 

“Hold up — we can do better than that,” said Wilbur, restraining 
Kitchell’s fury of impatience. “Slide the big skylight off — it’s loose 
already.” 

A couple of the schooner’s hands were ordered aboard the 
“Lady Letty,” and the skylight removed. At first the pour of gas 
was terrific, but by degrees it abated, and at the end of half an hour 
Kitchell could keep back no longer. 

“Come on !” he cried, catching up an axe ; “rot the difference.” 
All the plundering instincts of the man were aroused and clamor- 
ing. He had become a very wolf within scent of its prey — a verita- 
ble hyena nuzzling about its carrion. 

“Lord !” he gasped, “t’ think that everything we see, everything 
we find, is ours !” 

Wilbur himself was not far behind him in eagerness. Some- 
where deep down in the heart of every Anglo-Saxon lies the preda- 
tory instinct of his Viking ancestors — an instinct that a thousand 
years of respectability and taxpaying have not quite succeeded in 
eliminating. 

A flight of six steps, brass-bound and bearing the double L of 


id Moran of the Lady Letty 

the bark s monogram, led them down into a sort of vestibule. From 
the vestibule a door opened directly into the main cabin. They 
entered. 

The cabin was some twenty feet long and unusually spacious. 
Fresh from his recollection of the grime and reek of the schooner, 
it struck Wilbur as particularly dainty. It was painted white with 
stripes of blue, gold and pea-green. On either side three doors 
opened off into staterooms and private cabins, and with each roll 
of the derelict these doors banged like an irregular discharge of 
revolvers. In the centre was the dining-table, covered with a red 
cloth, very much awry. On each side of the table were four arm- 
chairs, screwed to the deck, one somewhat larger at the head. 
Overhead, in swinging racks, were glasses and decanters of whis- 
key and some kind of white wine. But for one feature the sight of 
the “Letty’s” cabin was charming. However, on the floor by the 
sliding door in the forward bulkhead lay a body, face upward. 

The body was that of a middle-aged, fine-looking man, his 
head covered with the fur, ear-lapped cap that Norwegians affect, 
even in the tropics. The eyes were wide open, the face discolored. 
In the last gasp of suffocation the set of false teeth had been forced 
half-way out of his mouth, distorting the countenance with a hide- 
ous simian grin. Instantly Kitchell’s eye was caught by the glint 
of the gold in which these teeth were set. 

“Here’s about $100 to begin with,” he exclaimed, and picking 
up the teeth, dropped them into his pocket with a wink at Wilbur. 
The body of the dead Captain was passed up through the skylight 
and slid out on the deck, and Wilbur and Kitchell turned their 
attention to what had been his stateroom. 

The Captain’s room was the largest one of the six staterooms 
opening from the main cabin. 

“Here we are!” exclaimed Kitchell as he and Wilbur entered. 
“The old man’s room, and no mistake.” 

Besides the bunk, the stateroom was fitted up with a lounge of 
red plush screwed to the bulkhead. A roll of charts leaned in one 
corner, an alarm clock, stopped at 1:15, stood on a shelf in the 
company of some dozen paper-covered novels and a drinking-glass 
full of cigars. Over the lounge, however, was the rack of instru- 
ments, sextant, barometer, chronometer, glass, and the like, securely 
screwed down, while against the wall, in front of a swivel leather 
chair that was ironed to the deck, was the locked secretary. 

“Look at ’em, just look at ’em, will you!” said Kitchell, run- 


Moran 


167 

,ning his fingers lovingly over the polished brass of the instru- 
ments. “There’s a thousand dollars of stuff right here. The chro- 
nometer’s worth five hundred alone, Bennett & Sons’ own make.” 
He turned to the secretary. 

“Now !’ he exclaimed, with a long breath. 

What followed thrilled Wilbur with alternate excitement, curi- 
osity, and a vivid sense of desecration and sacrilege. For the life 
of him he could not make the thing seem right or legal in his eyes, 
and yet he had neither the wish nor the power to stay his hand or 
interfere with what Kitchell was doing. 

The Captain put the blade of the axe in the chink of the secre- 
tary’s door and wrenched it free. It opened down to form a sort of 
desk, and disclosed an array of cubby-holes and two small doors, 
both locked. These latter Kitchell smashed in with the axe-head. 
Then he seated himself in the swivel chair and began to rifle their 
contents systematically, Wilbur leaning over his shoulder. 

The heat from the coal below them was almost unbearable. In 
the cabin the six doors kept up a continuous ear-shocking fusillade, 
as though half a dozen men were fighting with revolvers; from 
without, down the open skylight, came the sing-song talk of the 
Chinamen and the wash and ripple of the two vessels, now side by 
side. The air, foul beyond expression, tasted of brass, their heads 
swam and ached to bursting, but absorbed in their work they had 
no thought of the lapse of time nor the discomfort of their surround- 
ings. Twice during the examination of the bark’s papers, Kitchell 
sent Wilbur out into the cabin for the whiskey decanter in the 
swinging racks. 

“Here’s the charter papers,” said Kitchell, unfolding and spread- 
ing them out one by one ; “and here’s the clearing papers from Blyth 
in England. This yere’s the insoorance, and here, this is — rot that, 
nothin’ but the articles for the crew — no use to us.” 

In a separate envelope, carefully sealed and bound, they came 
upon the Captain’s private papers. A marriage certificate setting 
forth the union between Eilert Sternersen, of Fruholmen, Norway, 
and Sarah Moran, of some seaport town (the name was undecipher- 
abe) of the North of England. Next came a birth certificate of a 
daughter named Moran, dated twenty-two years back, and a bill 
of sale of the bark “Lady Letty,” whereby a two-thirds interest was 
conveyed from the previous owners (a shipbuilding firm of Chris- 
tiania) to Capt. Eilert Sternersen. 

“The old man was his own boss,” commented Kitchell. “Hello!” 


1 68 


Moran of the Lady Letty 

he remarked, “look here”; a yellowed photograph was in his hand, 
the picture of a stout, fair-haired woman of about forty, wearing 
enormous pendant earrings in the style of the early sixties. Below 
was written: “S. Moran Sternersen, ob. 1867.” 

“Old woman copped off,” said Kitchell, “so much the better for 
us ; no heirs to put in their gab ; an’ — hold hard — steady ..,all — 
here’s the will, s’help me.” 

The only items of importance in the will were the confirmation 
of the wife’s death and the expressly stated bequest of “the bark 
known; as and sailing under the name of the ‘Lady Letty’ to my 
only and beloved daughter, Moran.” 

“Well,” said Wilbur. 

The Captain sucked his mustache, then furiously, striking the 
desk with his fist : 

“The bark’s ours !” there was a certain ring of defiance in his 
voice. “Damn the will ! I ain’t so cock-sure about the law, but I’ll 
make sure.” 

“As how?” said Wilbur. 

Kitchell slung the will out of the open port into the sea. 

“That’s how,” he remarked. “I’m the heir. I found the bark; 
mine she is, an’ mine she stays — yours an’ mine, that is.” 

But Wilbur had not even time to thoroughly enjoy the satisfac- 
tion that the Captain’s words conveyed, before an idea suddenly pre- 
sented itself to him. The girl he had found on board of the bark, 
the ruddy, fair-hiared girl of the fine and hardy Norse type — that 
was the daughter, of course ; that was “Moran.” Instantly the situ- 
ation adjusted itself in his imagination. The two inseparables, 
father and daughter, sailors both, their lives passed together on ship- 
board, and the “Lady Letty” their dream, their ambition, a vessel 
that at last they could call their own. 

Then this disastrous voyage — perhaps the first in their new craft 
— the combustion in the coal — the panic terror of the crew and their 
desertion of the bark, and the sturdy resolution of the father and 
daughter to bring the “Letty” in — to work her into port alone. 
They had failed; the father had died from gas; the girl, at least 
for the moment, was crazed from its effects. But the bark had 
not been abandoned. The owner was on board. Kitchell was 
wrong; she was no derelict; not one penny could they gain by her 
salvage. 

For an instant a wave of bitterest disappointment passed over 
Wilbur as he saw his $30,000 dwindling to nothing. Then the in- 


Moran 


169 

stincts of habit reasserted themselves. The taxpayer in him was 
stronger than the freebooter, after all. He felt that it was his duty 
to see to it that the girl had her rights. Kitchell must be made 
aware of the situation — must be told that Moran, the daughter, the 
Captain’s heir, was on board the schooner; that the “kid” found 
in the wheel-box was a girl. But on second thought that would 
never do. Above all things, the brute Kitchell must not be shown 
that a girl was aboard the schooner on which he had absolute com- 
mand, nor, setting the question of Moran’s sex aside, must Kitchell 
know her even’ as the dead Captain’s heir. There was a difference 
in the men here, and Wilbur appreciated it. Kitchell, the law-abid- 
ing taxpayer, was a weakling in comparison with Kitchell, the free- 
booter and beach-comber in sight of his prize. 

“Son,” said the Captain, making a bundle of all the papers, “take 
these over to my bunk and hide ’em under the donkey’s breakfast. 
Stop a bit,” he added, as Wilbur started away. “I’ll go with you. 
We’ll have to bury the old man.” 

Throughout all the afternoon the Captain had been drinking 
the whiskey from the decanter found in the cabin; now he stood 
up unsteadily, and, raising his glass, exclaimed : 

“Sonny, here’s to Kitchell, Wilbur & Co., beach-combers, un- 
limited. What do you say, hey?” 

“I only want to be sure that we’ve a right to the bark,” answered 
Wilbur. 

“Right to her — ri-hight to ’er,” hiccoughed the Captain. “Strike 
me blind, I’d like to see any one try’n take her away from Alvinza 
Kitchell now,” and he thrust out his chin at Wilbur. 

“Well, so much the better, then,” said Wilbur, pocketing the 
papers. The pair ascended to the deck. 

The burial of Captain Sternersen was a dreadful business. Kitch- 
ell, far gone in whiskey, stood on the house issuing his orders, drink- 
ing from one of the decanters he had brought up with him. He had 
already rifled the dead man’s pockets, and had even taken away the 
boots and fur-lined cap. Cloths were cut from the spanker and 
rolled around the body. Then Kitchell ordered the peak halyards 
unrove and used as lashings to tie the canvas around the corpse. 
The red and white flags (the distress signals) were still bound on 
the halyards. 

“Leave ’em on. Leave ’em on,” commanded Kitchell. “Use ’m 
as a shrou’. All ready now, stan’ by to let her go.” 

Wilbur looked over at the schooner and noted with immense 

H— IV— Norris 


170 Moran of the Lady Letty 

relief that Moran was not in sight. Suddenly an abrupt react*— 
took place in the Captain’s addled brain. 

“Can’t bury ’um ’ithout ’is teeth,” he gabbled solemnly. He laid 
back the canvas and replaced the set. “Ole man’d ha’nt me ’f I kep’ 
’s teeth. Strike! look a’ that, I put ’em in upside down. Nev’ min’, 
upsi’ down, downsi’ up, whaz odds, all same with ole Bill, hey, ole 
Bill, all same with you, hey?” Suddenly he began to howl with 
laughter. “T’ think a bein’ buried with y’r teeth upsi’ down. Oh, 
mee, but that’s a good grind. Stan’ by to heave ole Uncle Bill over 
— ready, heave, an’ away she goes.” He ran to the side, waving his 
hat and looking over. “Goo’-by, ole Bill, by-by. There you go, an’ 
the signal o’ distress roun’ you, H. B. T’m in need of assistance.’ 
Lord, here comes the sharks — look ! look ! look at um fight ! look at 
um takin’ ole Bill ! I’m in need of assistance. I sh’d say you were, 
ole Bill.” 

Wilbur looked once over the side in the churning, lashing water, 
then drew back, sick to vomiting. But in less than thirty seconds 
the water was quiet. Not a shark was in sight. 

“Get over t’ the ‘Bertha’ with those papers, son,” ordered Kitch- 
ell ; “I’ll bide here and dig up sh’ mor’ loot. I’ll gut this ole pill-box 
from stern to stem-post ’fore I’ll leave. I won’t leave a copper 
rivet in ’er, notta co’er rivet, dyhear?” he shouted, his face purple 
with unnecessary rage. 

Wilbur returned to the schooner with the two Chinamen, leaving 
Kitchell alone on the bark. He found the girl sitting by the rud- 
derhead almost as he had left her, looking about her with vague, 
unseeing eyes. 

“You name is Moran, isn’t it?” he asked. “Moran Sternersen.” 

“Yes,” she said, after a pause, then looked curiously at a bit of 
tarred rope on the deck. Nothing more could be got out of her. 
Wilbur talked to her at length, and tried to make her understand 
the situation, but it was evident she did not follow. However, at 
each mention of her name she would answer : 

“Yes, yes, I’m Moran.” 

Wilbur turned away from her, biting his nether lip in per- 
plexity. 

“Now, what am I going to do?” he muttered. “What a situa- 
tion! If I tell the Captain, it’s all up with the girl. If he didn’t 
kill her, he’d do worse — might do both. If I don’t tell him, there 
goes her birthright, $60,000, and she alone in the world. It’s begun 
to go already,” he added, listening to the sounds that came from the 


Moran 


17 1 

fl'k. Kitchell was raging to and fro in the cabin in a frenzy of 
drink, axe in hand, smashing glassware, hacking into the wood- 
work, singing the while at the top of his voice : 

‘ ‘ As through the drop I go, drop I go, 

As through the drop I go, drop I go, 

As through the drop I go, 

Down to hell that yawns below, 

Twenty stiffs all in a row 
Damn your eyes.” 

“That’s the kind of man I have to deal with,” muttered Wilbur. 
“It’s encouraging, and there’s no one to talk to. Not much help 
in a Chinaman and a crazy girl in a man’s oilskins. It’s about the 
biggest situation you ever faced, Ross Wilbur, and you’re all alone. 
What the devil are you going to do?” 

He acknowledged with considerable humiliation that he could 
not get the better of Kitchell, either physically or mentally. Kitchell 
was a more powerful man than he, and cleverer. The Captain was 
in his element now, and he was the commander. On shore it would 
have been vastly different. The city-bred fellow, with a policeman 
always in call, would have known how to act. 

“I simply can’t stand by and see that hog plundering everything 
she’s got. What’s to be done?” 

And suddenly, while the words were yet in his mouth, the sun 
was wiped from the sky like writing from a slate, the horizon black- 
ened, vanished, a long white line of froth whipped across the sea 
and came on hissing. A hollow note boomed out, boomed, swelled, 
and grew rapidly to a roar. 

An icy chill stabbed the air. Then the squall swooped and 
struck, and the sky shut down over the troubled ocean like a pot- 
lid over a boiling pot. The schooner’s fore and main sheets, that 
had not been made fast, unrove at the first gust and began to slat 
wildly in the wind. The Chinamen cowered to the decks, grasping 
at cleats, stays, and masts. They were helpless — paralyzed with fear. 
Charlie clung to a stay, one arm over his head, as though dodging 
a blow. Wilbur gripped the rail with his hands where he stood, 
his teeth set, his eyes wide, waiting for the foundering of the 
schooner, his only thought being that the end could not be far. 
He had heard of the suddenness of tropical squalls, but this had 
come with the abruptness of a scene-shift at a play. The schooner 


ij2 Moran of the Lady Letty 

veered broad-on to the waves. It was the beginning of the end — 
another roll to the leeward like the last and the Pacific would come 
aboard. 

“And you call yourselves sailor men ! Are you going to drown 
like rats on a plank ?” A voice that Wilbur did not know went ring- 
ing through that horrid shouting of wind and sea like the call of 
a bugle. He turned to see Moran, the girl of the “Lady Letty/’ 
standing erect upon the quarterdeck, holding down the schooner’s 
wheel. The confusion of that dreadful moment, that had paralyzed 
the crew’s senses, had brought back hers. She was herself again, 
savage, splendid, dominant, superb, in her wrath at their weakness, 
their cowardice. 

Her heavy brows were knotted over her flaming eyes, her hat 
was gone, and her thick bands of yellow hair whipped across her 
face and streamed out in the wind like streamers of the northern 
lights. As she shouted, gesturing furiously to the men, the loose 
sleeve of the oilskin coat fell back, and showed her forearm, strong, 
round, and white as scud, the hand and wrist so tanned as to look 
almost like a glove. And all the while she shouted aloud, furious 
with indignation, raging against the supineness of the “Bertha’s” 
crew. 

“Stand by, men! stand by! Look alive, now! Make fast the 
stays’l halyards to the dory’s warp! Now, then, unreeve y’r hal- 
yards! all clear there! pass the end for’d outside the rigging! out- 
side! you fools! Make fast to the bits for’ard — let go y’r line — 
that’ll do. Soh — soh. There, she’s coming up.” 

The dory had been towing astern, and the seas combing over 
her had swamped her. Moran had been inspired to use the swamped 
boat as a sea-anchor, fastening her to the schooner’s bow instead of 
to the stern. The “Bertha’s” bow, answering to the drag, veered 
around. The “Bertha” stood head to the seas, riding out the squall. 
It was a masterpiece of seamanship, conceived and executed in the 
very thick of peril, and it saved the schooner. 

But there was little time to think of themselves. On board the 
bark the sails were still set. The squall struck the “Lady Letty” 
squarely aback. She heeled over upon the instant; then as the top 
hamper carried away with a crash, eased back a moment upon an 
even keel. But her cargo had shifted. The bark was doomed. 
Through the flying spray and scud and rain Wilbur had a momen- 
tary glimpse of Kitchell, hacking at the lanyards with his axe. 
Then the “Lady Letty” capsized, going over till her masts were 


Moran 


173 

fiat with the water, and in another second rolled bottom up. For a 
moment her keel and red iron bottom were visible through the mist 
of driving spoon-drift. Suddenly they sank from sight. She was 
gone. 

And then, like the rolling up of a scroll, the squall passed, the 
sun returned, the sky burned back to blue, the ruggedness was 
smoothed from the ocean, and the warmth of the tropics closed 
around the “Bertha Milkier/’ once more rolling easily on the swell 
of the ocean. 

Of the “Lady Letty” and the drunken beach-combing Captain 
not a trace remained. Kitchell had gone down with his prize. The 
“Bertha Millner’s” Chinese crew huddled forward, talking wildly, 
pointing and looking in a bewildered fashion over the sides. 

Wilbur and Moran were left alone on the open Pacific. 


174 


Moran of the Lady Letty 


V 

A GIRL CAPTAIN 

When Wilbur came on deck the morning after the sinking of 
the bark he was surprised to find the schooner under way again. 
Wilbur and Charlie had berthed forward during that night — Char- 
lie with the hands, Wilbur in the Captain’s hammock. The reason 
for this change of quarters had been found in a peremptory order 
from Moran during the dog-watch the preceding evening. 

She had looked squarely at Wilbur from under her scowl, and 
had said briefly and in a fine contralto voice, that he had for the 
first time noted : “I berth aft, in the cabin ; you and the Chinaman 
forward. Understand ?” 

Moran had only forestalled Wilbur’s intention; while after her 
almost miraculous piece of seamanship in the rescue of the 
schooner, Charlie and the Chinese crew accorded her a respect that 
was almost superstitious. 

Wilbur met her again at breakfast. She was still wearing 
men’s clothing — part of Kitchell’s outfit — and was booted to the 
knee; but now she wore no hat, and her enormous mane of rye- 
colored hair was braided into long strands near to the thickness of 
a man’s arm. The redness of her face gave a startling effect to 
her pale blue eyes and sandy, heavy eyebrows, that easily lowered 
to a frown. She ate with her knife, and after pushing away her 
plate Wilbur observed that she drank half a tumbler of whiskey 
and water. 

The conversation between the two was tame enough. There 
was no common ground upon which they could meet. To her 
father’s death — no doubt an old matter even before her rescue — 
she made no allusion. Her attitude toward Wilbur was one of 
defiance and suspicion. Only once did she relax : 

“How did you come to be aboard here with these rat-eaters — 
you’re no sailor?” she said abruptly. 

“Huh !” laughed Wilbur, mirthlessly ; “huh ! I was shanghaied.” 

Moran smote the table with a red fist, and shouted with sonor- 
ous, bell-toned laughter. 


A Girl Captain 175 

“Shanghaied? — you? Now, that is really good. And what are 
you going to do now ?” 

“What are you going to do?” 

“Signal the first home-bound vessel and be taken into Frisco. 
Fve my insurance to collect (Wilbur had given her the ‘Letty’s’ 
papers) and the disaster to report.” 

“Well, I’m not keen on shark-hunting myself,” said Wilbur. 
But Moran showed no interest in his plans. 

However, they soon found that they were not to be permitted 
to signal. At noon the same day the schooner sighted a steam- 
ship’s smoke on the horizon, and began to raise her rapidly. Moran 
immediately bound on the ensign, union down, and broke it out at 
the peak. 

Charlie, who was at the wheel, spoke a sentence in Chinese, and 
one of the hands drew his knife' across the halyards and brought 
the distress signal to the deck. Moran turned upon Charlie with 
an oath, her brows knitted. 

“No! No!” sang Charlie, closing his eyes and wagging his 
head. “No ! Too muchee los’ time ; no can stop. You come down- 
side cabin ; you an’ one-piece boss number two (this was Wilbur) 
have um chin-chin.” 

The odd conclave assembled about Kitchell’s table — the club- 
man, the half-masculine girl in men’s clothes, and the Chinaman. 
The conference was an angry one, Wilbur and Moran insisting that 
they be put aboard the steamship, Charlie refusing with calm ob- 
stinacy. * 

“I have um chin-chin with China boys las’ nigh’. China boy 
heap flaid, no can stop um steamship. Heap flaid too much talkee- 
talkee. No stop; go fish now; go fish chop-chop. Los’ heap time; 
go fish. I no savvy sail um boat, China boy no savvy sail um 
boat. I tink um you savvy (and he pointed to Moran). I tink 
um you savvy plenty heap much disa bay. Boss number 
two, him no savvy sail um boat, but him savvy plenty many all 
same.” 

“And we’re to stop on board your dough-dish and navigate her 
for you ?” shouted Moran, her face blazing. 

Charlie nodded blandly: “I tink um yass.” 

“And when we get back to port,” exclaimed Wilbur, “you think, 
perhaps I — we won’t make it interesting for you?” 

Charlie smiled. 

“I tink um Six Company heap rich.” 


17 6 Moran of the Lady Letty 

“Well, get along,” ordered Moran, as though the schooner was 
her property, “and we’ll talk it over.” 

“China boy like you heap pretty big,” said Charlie to Moran, as 
he went out. “You savvy sail um boat all light; wanta you fo’ 
captain. But,” he added, suddenly dropping his bland passivity as 
though he wore a mask, and for an instant allowing the wicked ma- 
levolent Cantonese to come to the surface, “China boy no likee fun- 
,nee business, savvy?” Then with a smile of a Talleyrand he disap- 
peared. 

Moran and Wilbur were helpless for the present. They were 
but two against seven Chinamen. They must stay on board, if the 
coolies wished it; and if they were to stay it was a matter of their 
own personal safety that the “Bertha Millner” should be properly 
navigated. 

“I'll captain her,” concluded Moran, sullenly, at the end of their 
talk. “You must act as mate, Mr. Wilbur. And don’t get any 
mistaken idea into your head that, because I’m a young girl and 
alone, you are going to run things your way. I don’t like funny 
business any better than Charlie.” 

“Look here,” said Wilbur, complaining, “don’t think I’m alto- 
gether a villain. I think you’re a ripping fine girl. You’re differ- 
ent from any kind of girl I ever met, of course, but you, by jingo, 
you’re — you’re splendid. There in the squall last evening, when 
you stood at the wheel, with your hair — ” 

“Oh, drop that!” said the girl, contemptuously, and went up on 
k deck. Wilbur followed, scratching an ear. 

Charlie was called aft and their decision announced. Moran 
would navigate the “Bertha Millner,” Wilbur and she taking the 
watches. Charlie promised that he would answer for the obedience 
of the men. 

Their first concern now was to shape their course for Magdalena 
Bay. Moran and Wilbur looked over Kitchell’s charts and log- 
book, but the girl flung them aside disdainfully. 

“He’s been sailing by the dead reckoning, and his navigation is 
drivel. Why, a cabin-boy would know better; and, to end with, 
the chronometer is run down- I’ll have to get Green’ich time bv 
taking the altitude of a star to-night, and figure out our longitude. 
Did you bring off our sextant?” 

Wilbur shook his head. “Only the papers,” he said. 

“There’s only an old ebony quadrant here,” said Moran, “but 
it will have to do.” 


A Girl Captain 177 

That night, lying flat on her back on the deck with a quadrant to 
her eye, she “got a star and brought it down to the horizon,” and 
sat up under the reeking lamp in the cabin nearly the whole night 
ciphering and ciphering till she had filled up the four sides of the 
log-slate with her calculations. However, by daylight she had 
obtained the correct Greenwich time and worked the schooner’s 
longitude. 

Two days passed, then a third. Moran set the schooner’s course. 
She kept almost entirely to herself, and when not at the wheel or 
taking the sun or writing up the log, gloomed over the after-rail 
into the schooner’s wake. Wilbur knew not what to think of her. 
Never in his life had he met with any girl like this. So accus- 
tomed had she been to the rough, give-and-take, direct associations 
of a seafaring life that she misinterpreted well-meant politeness — 
the only respect he knew how to pay her — to mean insidious ad- 
vances. She was suspicious of him — distrusted him utterly, and 
openly ridiculed his abortive seamanship. Pretty she was not, but 
she soon began to have a certain amount of attraction for Wilbur. 
He liked her splendid ropes of hair, her heavy contralto voice, her 
fine animal strength of bone and muscle (admittedly greater than 
his own) ; he admired her indomitable courage and self-reliance, 
while her positive genius in the matters of seamanship and naviga- 
tion filled him with speechless wonder. The girls he had been used 
to were clever only in their knowledge of the amenities of an after- 
noon call or the formalities of a paper german. A girl of two-and- 
twenty who could calculate longitude from the altitude of a star 
was outside his experience. The more he saw of her the more he 
knew himself to have been right in his first estimate. She drank 
whiskey after her meals, and when angry, which was often, swore 
like a buccaneer. As yet she was almost, as one might say, without, 
sex — savage, unconquered, untamed, glorying in her own inde- 
pendence, her sullen isolation. Her neck was thick, strong, and 
very white, her hands roughened and calloused. In her men’s 
clothes she looked tall, vigorous, and unrestrained, and on more 
than one occasion, as Wilbur passed close to her, he was made 
aware that her hair, her neck, her entire personality exhaled a fine, 
sweet, natural redolence that savored of the ocean and great winds. 

One day, as he saw her handling a huge water-barrel by the 
chines only, with a strength he knew to be greater than his own, her 
brows contracted with the effort, her hair curling about her thick 
neck, her large, round arms bare to the elbow, a sudden thrill of 



178 Moran of the Lady Letty 

enthusiasm smote through him, and between his teeth he exclaimed 
to himself: 

“By Jove, you’re a woman !” 

The “Bertha Millner” continued to the southward, gliding quiet- 
ly over the oil-smoothness of the ocean under airs so light as hardly 
to ruffle the surface. Sometimes at high noon the shimmer of the 
ocean floor blended into the shimmer of the sky at the horizon, and 
then it was no longer water and blue heavens ; the little craft 
seemed to be poised in a vast crystalline sphere, where there was 
neither height nor depth — poised motionless in warm, coruscating, 
opalescent space, alone with the sun. 

At length one morning the schooner, which for the preceding 
twenty-four hours had been heading eastward, raised the land, and 
by the middle of the afternoon had come up to within a mile of a 
low, sandy shore, quivering with heat, and had tied up to the kelp in 
Magdalena Bay. 

Charlie now took over entire charge of operations. For two 
days previous the Chinese hands had been getting out the deck- 
tubs, tackles, gaffs, spades, and the other shark-fishing gear that 
had been stowed forward. The sails were lowered and gasketed, 
the decks cleared of all impedimenta, hogsheads and huge vats stood 
ready in the waist, and the lazy indolence of the previous week 
was replaced by an extraordinary activity. 

The day after their arrival in the bay was occupied by all hands 
in catching bait. This bait was a kind of rock-fish, of a beautiful 
red gold color, and about the size of an ordinary cod. They bit 
readily enough, but out of every ten hooked three were taken off 
the lines by the sharks before they could be brought aboard. An- 
other difficulty lay in the fact that, either because of the excessive 
heat in the air or the percentage of alkali in the water, they spoiled 
almost immediately if left in the air. 

Turtle were everywhere — floating gray-green disks just under 
the surface. Sea-birds in clouds clamored all day long about the 
shore and sand-pits. At long intervals flying-fish skittered over the 
water like skipping- stones. Shoals of porpoises came in from out- 
side, leaping clumsily along the edges of the kelp. Bewildered 
land-birds perched on the schooner’s rigging, and in the early morn- 
ing the whistling of quail could be heard on shore near where a 
little fresh-water stream ran down to meet the ocean. 

It was Wilbur who caught the first shark on the second morn- 
ing of the “Bertha’s’’ advent in Magdalena Bay. A store of bait 


A Girl Captain 179 

had been accumulated, split and halved into chunks for the shark- 
hooks, and Wilbur, baiting one of the huge lines that had been 
brought up on deck the evening before, flung it overboard, and 
watched the glimmer of the white fish-meat turning to a -silvery 
green as it sank down among the kelp. Almost instantly a long 
moving shadow, just darker than the blue-green mass of the water, 
identified itself at a little distance. 

Enormous flukes proceeded from either side, an erect dorsal fin, 
like an enormous cock’s crest, rose from the back, while immedi- 
ately over the head swam the two pilot-fish, following so closely 
the movement of the shark as to give the impression of actually 
adhering to his body. Twice and three times the great man-eater 
twelve feet from snout to tail-tip, circled slowly about the bait, the 
flukes moving fan-like through the water. Once he came up, 
touched the bait with his nose, and backed easily away. He disap- 
peared, returned, and poised himself motionless in the schooner’s 
shadow, feeling the water with his flukes. 

Moran was looking over Wilbur’s shoulder. “He’s as good as 
caught,” she muttered; “once let them get sight of meat, and — 
Steady now !” The shark moved forward. Suddenly, with a long, 
easy roll, he turned completely upon his back. His white belly 
flashed like silver in the water — the bait disappeared. 

“You’ve got him !” shouted Moran. 

The rope slid through Wilbur’s palms, burning the skin as the 
huge sea-wolf sounded. Moran laid hold. The heavy, sullen 
wrenching from below twitched and swayed their bodies and threw 
them against each other. Her bare, cool arm was pressed close over 
his knuckles. 

“Heave !” she cried, laughing with the excitement of the mo- 
ment. “Heave all !”■ — she began the chant of sailors hauling at the 
ropes. Together, and bracing their feet against the schooner’s rail, 
they fought out the fight with the great fish. In a swirl of lather 
the head and shoulders came above the surface, the flukes churning 
the water till it boiled like the wake of a screw steamship. But as 
soon as these great fins were clear of the surface the shark fell quiet 
and helpless. 

Charlie came up with the cutting-in spade, and as the fish hung 
still over the side, cut him open from neck to belly with a single 
movement. Another Chinaman stood by with a long-handled gaff, 
hooked out the purple-black liver, brought it over the side, and 
dropped it into one of the deck-tubs. The shark thrashed and 


i8o 


Moran of the Lady Letty 

writhed, his flukes quivering and -his gills distended. Wilbur 
could not restrain an exclamation. 

'‘Brutal business !” he muttered. 

“Hoh !” exclaimed Moran, scornfully, “cutting-in is too good 
for him. Sailor-folk are no friends of such carrion as that.” 

Other lines were baited and dropped overboard, and the hands 
settled themselves to the real business of the expedition. There was 
no skill in the matter. The sharks bit ravenously, and soon swarmed 
about the schooner in hundreds. Hardly a half minute passed that 
one of the four Chinamen that were fishing did not signal a catch, 
and Charlie and Jim were kept busy with spade and gaff. By noon 
the deck-tubs were full.* The lines were hauled in, and the hands 
set the tubs in the sun to try out the oil. Under the tropical heat 
the shark livers almost visibly melted away, and by four o’clock in 
the afternoon the tubs were full of a thick, yellow oil, the reek of 
which instantly recalled to Wilbur's mind the rancid smell of the 
schooner on the day when he had first come aboard of her. The 
deck-tubs were emptied into the hogsheads and vats that stood in 
the waist of the “Bertha,” the tubs scoured, and the lines and bent 
shark-hooks overhauled. Charlie disappeared in the galley, supper 
was cooked, and eaten upon deck under the conflagration of the sun- 
set; the lights were set, the Chinamen foregathered in the fo’c’stle 
head, smoking opium, and by eight o’clock the routine of the day 
was at an end. 

So the time passed. In a short time Wilbur could not have said 
whether the day was Wednesday or Sunday. He soon tired of the 
unsportsmanlike work of killing the sluggish brutes, and turned 
shoreward to relieve the monotony of the succeeding days. He and 
Moran were left a good deal to their own devices. Charlie was the 
master of the men now. “Mate,” said Moran to Wilbur one day, 
after a dinner of turtle steaks and fish, eaten in the open air on 
the quarterdeck ; “mate, this is slow work, and the schooner smells 
terribly foul. We’ll have the dory out and go ashore. We can 
tumble a cask into her and get some water. The butt’s three- 
quarters empty. Let’s see how it feels to be in Mexico.” 

“Mexico?” said Wilbur. “That’s so — Lower California is Mex- 
ico. I’d forgotten that!” 

They went ashore and spent the afternoon in filling the water- 
cask from the fresh-water stream and in gathering abalones, which 
Moran declared were delicious eating, from the rocks left bare by 
the tide. But nothing could have exceeded the loneliness of that 


1 8 1 


A Girl Captain 

shore and backland, palpitating under the flogging of a tropical sun. 
Low hills of sand, covered with brush, stretched back from the 
shore. On the eastern horizon, leagues distant, blue masses of 
mountain striated with mirages swam in the scorching air. 

The sand was like fire to the touch. Far out in the bay the 
schooner hung motionless under bare sticks, resting apparently 
upon her inverted shadow only. And that was all — the flat, heat- 
ridden land, the sheen of the open Pacific, and the lonely schooner. 

“Quiet enough,” said Wilbur, in a low voice, wondering if there 
was such a place as San Francisco, with its paved streets and cable 
cars, and if people who had been his friends there had ever had 
any real existence. 

“Do you like it?” asked Moran quickly, facing him, her thumbs 
in her belt. 

“It’s good fun — how about you?” 

“IPs no different than the only life Fve known. I suppose you 
think it’s a queer kind of life for a girl. Fve lived by doing things, 
not by thinking things, or reading about what other people have 
done or thought ; and I guess it’s what you do that counts, rather 
than what you think or read about. Where’s that pinch-bar ? We’ll 
get a couple more abalones for supper, and then put off.” 

That was the only talk of moment they had during the after- 
noon. All the rest of their conversation had been of those things 
that immediately occupied their attention. 

They regained the schooner toward five o’clock, to find the 
Chinamen perplexed and mystified. No explanation was forthcom- 
ing, and Charlie gave them supper in preoccupied silence. As they 
were eating the abalones, which Moran had fried in batter, Charlie 
said : 

“Shark all gone ! No more catch um — him all gone.” 

“Gone- — why ?” 

“No savvy,” said Charlie. “No likee, no likee. China boy tink 
um heap funny, too much heap funny.” 

It was true. During all the next day not a shark was in sight, 
and though the crew fished assiduously till dark, they were re- 
warded by not so much as a bite. No one could offer any ex- 
planation. 

“ ’Tis strange,” said Moran. “Never heard of shark leaving this 
feed before. And you can see with half an eye that the hands don’t 
like the looks of it. Superstitious beggars ! they need to be clumped 
in the head.” 


i 82 


Moran of the Lady Letty 

That same night Wilbur woke in his hammock on the fo’c’stle 
head about half-past two. The moon was down, the sky one powder 
of stars. There was not a breath of wind. It was so still that he 
could hear some large fish playing and breaking off toward the 
shore. Then, without the least warning, he felt the schooner begin 
to lift under him. He rolled out of his hammock and stood on the 
deck. There could be no doubt of it — the whole forepart was rising 
beneath him. He could see the bowsprit moving upward from star 
to star. Still the schooner lifted; objects on deck began to slide aft; 
the oil in the deck-tubs washed over; then, as there came a wild 
scrambling of the Chinese crew up the fo’c’stle hatch, she settled 
again gradually at first, then, with an abrupt lurch that almost threw 
him from his feet, regained her level. Moran met him in the waist. 
Charlie came running aft. 

“What was that? Are we grounding? Has she struck?” 

“No, no; we’re still fast to the kelp. Was it a tidal wave?” 

“Nonsense. It wouldn’t have handled us that way.” 

“Well, what was it? Listen! For God’s sake keep quiet there 
forward !” 

Wilbur looked over the side into the water. The ripples were 
still chasing themselves away from the schooner. There was noth- 
ing else. The stillness shut down again. There was not a sound. 


A Sea Mystery 




VI 

A SEA MYSTERY 

In spite of his best efforts at self-control, Wilbur felt a slow, 
cold clutch at his heart. That sickening, uncanny lifting of the 
schooner out of the glassy water, at a time when there was not 
enough wind to so much as wrinkle the surface, sent a creep of 
something very like horror through all his flesh. 

Again he peered over the side, down into the kelp-thickened sea. 
Nothing — not a breath of air was stirring. The gray light that 
flooded down from the stars showed not a break upon the surface 
of Magdalena Bay. On shore, nothing moved. 

“Quiet there, forward,” called Moran to the shrill-voiced coolies. 

The succeeding stillness was profound. All on board listened 
intently. The water dripped like the ticking of a clock from the 
“Bertha Millner’s” stern, which with the rising of the bow had 
sunk almost to the rail. There was no other sound. 

“Strange,” muttered Moran, her brows contracting. 

Charlie broke the silence with a wail: “No likee, no likee!” he 
cried at top voice. 

The man had gone suddenly green; Wilbur could see the shine 
of his eyes distended like those of a harassed cat. As he, Moran, 
and Wilbur stood in the schooner’s waist, staring at each other, 
the smell of punk came to their nostrils. Forward, the coolies were 
already burning joss-sticks on the fo’castle head, kowtowing their 
foreheads to the deck. 

Moran went forward and kicked them to their feet and hurled 
their joss-sticks into the sea. 

“Feng shui! Feng shui !” they exclaimed with bated breaths. 
“The Feng shui no likee we.” 

Low in the east the horizon began to blacken against the sky. 
It was early morning. A watch was set, the Chinamen sent below, 
and until daybreak, when Charlie began to make a clattering of tins 
in the galley as he set about preparing breakfast, Wilbur paced 
the rounds of the schooner, looking, listening, and waiting again 


184 Moran of the Lady Letty 

for that slow, horrifying lift. But the rest of the night was with- 
out incident. 

After breakfast, the strangely assorted trio — Charlie, Moran, 
and Wilbur — held another conference in the cabin. It was decided 
to move the schooner to the other side of the bay. 

“Feng shui in disa place, no likee we,” announced Charlie. 

“Feng shui, who are they?” 

Charlie promptly became incoherent on this subject, and Moran 
and Wilbur could only guess that the Feng shui were the tutelary 
deities that presided over that portion of Magdalena Bay. At any 
rate, there were evidently no more shark to be caught in that fish- 
ing-ground; so sail was made, and by noon the “Bertha Millner” 
tied up to the kelp on the opposite side of the inlet, about half a 
mile from the shore. 

The shark were plentiful here and the fishing went forward 
again as before. Certain of these shark were hauled aboard, 
stunned by a blow on the nose, and their fins cut off. The China- 
men packed these fins away in separate kegs. Eventually they 
would be sent to China. 

Two or three days passed. The hands kept steadily at their 
work. Nothing more occurred to disturb the monotony of the 
scorching days and soundless nights ; the schooner sat as easily 
on the unbroken water as though built to the bottom. Soon the 
night watch was discontinued. During these days the three officers 
lived high. Turtle were plentiful, and what with their steaks end 
soups, the fried abalones, the sea-fish, the really delicious shark-fins, 
and the quail that Charlie and Wilbur trapped along the shore, 
the trio had nothing to wish for in the way of table luxuries. 

The shore was absolutely deserted, as well as the back country 
— an unbroken wilderness of sand and sage. Half a dozen times, 
Wilbur, wearying of his inaction aboard the schooner, made the 
entire circuit of the bay from point to point. Standing on one of 
the latter projections and looking out to the west, the Pacific ap- 
peared as empty of life as the land. Never a keel cut those waters, 
never a sail broke the edge of the horizon, never a feather of smoke 
spotted the sky where it whitened to meet the sea. Everything 
was empty — vast, unspeakably desolate — palpitating with heat. 

Another week passed. Charlie began to complain that the shark 
were growing scarce again. 

“I think bime-by him go away, once a mo’.” 

That same night, Wilbur, lying in his hammock, was awakened 


A Sea Mystery 185 

by a touch on his arm. He woke to see Moran beside him on the 
deck. 

“Did you hear anything?” she said in a low voice, looking at 
him under her scowl. 

“No! no!” he exclaimed, getting up, reaching for his wicker 
sandals. “Did you?” 

“I thought so — something. Did you feel anything?” 

“I’ve been asleep, I haven’t noticed anything. Is it beginning 
again ?” 

“The schooner lifted again, just now, very gently. I happened 
to be awake or I wouldn’t have noticed it.” They were talking in 
low voices, as is the custom of people speaking in the dark. 

“There, what’s that?” exclaimed Wilbur under his breath. A 
gentle vibration, barely perceptible, thrilled through the schooner. 
Under his hand, that was clasped upon the rail, Wilbur could feel 
a faint trembling in her frame. It stopped, began again, and died 
slowly away. 

“Well, what the devil is it?” he muttered impatiently, trying to 
master the returning creep of dread. 

Moran shook her head, biting her lip. 

“It’s beyond me,” she said, frowning. “Can you see anything?” 
The sky, sea, and land were .unbroken reaches of solitude. There 
was no breath of wind. 

“Listen,” said Moran. Far off to landward came the faint, 
sleepy clucking of a quail, and the stridulating of unnumbered crick- 
ets ; a long ripple licked the slope of the beach and slid back into the 
ocean. Wilbur shook his head. 

“Don’t hear anything,” he whispered. “Sh — there — she’s trem- 
bling again.” 

Once more a prolonged but faint quivering ran through the 
“Bertha Millner” from stem to stern, and from keel to masthead. 
There was a barely audible creaking of joints and panels. The oil 
in the deck-tubs trembled. The vibration was so fine and rapid 
that it tickled the soles of Wilbur’s feet as he stood on the deck. 

“I’d give two fingers to know what it all means,” murmured 
Moran in a low voice. “I’ve been to sea for — ” Then suddenly 
she cried aloud: “Steady all, she’s lifting again!” 

The schooner heaved slowly under them, this time by the stern. 
Up she went, up and up, while Wilbur gripped at a stay to keep his 
place, and tried to choke down his heart, that seemed to beat against 
his palate. 


1 86 


Moran of the Lady Letty 

“God!” ejaculated Moran, her eyes blazing. “This thing is — ” 
The “Bertha” came suddenly down to an easy keel, rocking in that 
glassy sea as if in a tide rip. The deck was awash with oil. Far 
out in the bay the ripples widening from the schooner blurred 
the reflections of the stars. The Chinamen swarmed up the hatch- 
way, voluble and shrill. Again the “Bertha Millner” lifted and 
sank, the tubs sliding on the deck, the masts quivering like reeds, 
the timbers groaning aloud with the strain. In the stern something 
cracked and smashed. Then the trouble died away, the ripples 
faded into the ocean, and the schooner settled to her keel, quite 
motionless. 

“Look,” said Moran, her face toward the “Bertha’s” stern. 
“The rudder is out of the gudgeons.” It was true — the “Bertha 
Millner’s” helm was unshipped. 

There was no more sleep for any one on board that night. Wil- 
bur tramped the quarterdeck, sick with a feeling he dared not put a 
name to. Moran sat by the wrecked rudder-head, a useless pistol 
in her hand, swearing under her breath from time to time. Charlie 
appeared on the quarterdeck at intervals, looked at Wilbur and 
Moran with wide-open eyes, and then took himself away. On the 
forward deck the coolies pasted strips of red paper inscribed with 
mottoes upon the mast, and filled the air with the reek of their 
joss-sticks. 

“If one could only see what it was,” growled Moran between her 
clinched teeth. “But this — this damned heaving and trembling, it 
— it’s queer.” 

“That’s it, that’s it,” said Wilbur quickly, facing her. “What 
are we going to do, Moran?” 

“Stick it out!” she exclaimed, striking her knee with her fist. 
“We can’t leave the schooner — I won’t leave her. I’ll stay by this 
dough-dish as long as two planks in her hold together. Were you 
thinking of cutting away?” She fixed him with her frown. 

Wilbur looked at her, sitting erect by the disabled rudder, her 
head bare, her braids of yellow hair hanging over her breast, sitting 
there in man’s clothes and man’s boots, the pistol at her side. He 
shook his head. 

“I’m not leaving the ‘Bertha’ till you do,” he answered; adding: 
“I’ll stand by you, mate, until we — ” 

“feel that?” said Moran, holding up a hand. 

A fine, quivering tremble was thrilling through every beam of 
the schooner, vibrating each rope like a harp-string. It passed 


A Sea Mystery 187 

away; but before either Wilbur or Moran could comment upon it 
recommenced, this time much more perceptibly. Charlie dashed 
aft, his queue flying. 

“W’at makum heap shake?” he shouted; “w’at for him shake? 
No savvy, no likee, pretty much heap flaid ; aie-yah, aie-yah !” 

Slowly the schooner heaved up as though upon the crest of some 
huge wave, slowly it settled, and again gradually lifted till Wilbur 
had to catch at the rail to steady his footing. The quivering sen- 
sation increased so that their very teeth chattered with it. Below in 
the cabin they could hear small objects falling from the shelves 
and table. Then with a sudden drop the “Bertha” fell back to her 
keel again, the spilled oil spouting from her scuppers, the masts 
rocking, the water churning and splashing from her sides. 

And that was all. There was no sound — nothing was in sight. 
There was only the frightened trembling of the little schooner and 
that long, slow heave and lift. 

Morning came, and breakfast was had in silence and grim per- 
plexity. It was too late to think of getting away, now that the 
rudder was disabled. The “Bertha Millner” must bide where she 
was. 

“And a little more of this dancing,” exclaimed Moran, “and we’ll 
have the planks springing off the stern-post.” 

Charlie nodded solemnly. He said nothing— his gravity had re- 
turned. Now in the glare of the tropical day, with the “Bertha 
Millner” sitting the sea as placidly as a brooding gull, he was Tal- 
leyrand again. 

“I tinkum yas,” he said vaguely. 

“Well, / think we had better try and fix the rudder and put 
back to Frisco,” said Moran. “You’re making no money this way. 
There are no shark to be caught. Something's wrong. They’re 
gone away somewhere. The crew are eating their heads off and not 
earning enough money to pay for their keep. What do you think?” 

“I tinkum yas.” 

“Then we’ll go home. Is that it?” 

“I tinkum yas — to-molla.” 

“To-morrow ?” 

“Yas.” 

“That’s settled then,” persisted Moran, surprised at his ready 
acquiescence; “we start home to-morrow ?” Charlie nodded. 

“To-molla,” he said. 

The rudder was not so badly damaged as they had at first sup- 


1 88 


Moran of the Lady Letty 

posed ; the break was easily mended, but it was found necessary for 
one of the men to go over the side. 

“Get over the side here, Jim,” commanded Moran. “Charlie, 
tell him what’s wanted ; we can’t work the pintle in from the deck.” 

But Charlie shook his head. 

“Him no likee go; him plenty much flaid.” 

Moran ripped out an oath. 

“What do I care if he’s afraid ! I want him to shove the pintle 
into the lower gudgeon. My God,” she exclaimed, with immense 
contempt, “what carrion! I’d sooner work a boat with she-mon- 
keys. Mr. Wilbur, I shall have to ask you to go over. I thought I 
was captain here, but it all depends on whether these rats are afraid 
or not.” 

“Plenty many shark,” expostulated Charlie. “Him flaid shark 
Dome back, catchum chop-chop.” 

“Stand by here with a couple of cutting-in spades,” cried Moran, 
“and fend off if you see any shark ; now, then, are you ready, mate ?” 

Wilbur took his determination in both hands, threw off his coat 
and sandals, and went over the stern rail. 

“Put your ear to the water,” called Moran from above; “some- 
times you can hear their flukes.” 

It took but a minute to adjust the pintle, and Wilbur regained the 
deck again, dripping and a little pale. He knew not what horrid 
form of death might have been lurking for him down below there 
underneath the kelp. As he started forward for dry clothes he was 
surprised to observe that Moran was smiling at him, holding out 
her hand. 

“That was well done,” she said, “and thank you. I’ve seen 
older sailor-men than you who wouldn’t have taken the risk.” 
Never before had she appeared more splendid in his eyes than at 
this moment. After changing his clothes in the fo’castle, he sat for 
a long time, his chin in his hands, very thoughtful. Then at length, 
as though voicing the conclusion of his reflections, said aloud, as he 
rose to his feet: 

“But, of course, that is out of the question.” 

He remembered that they were going home on the next day. 
Within a fortnight he would be in San Francisco again — a taxpayer, 
a police-protected citizen once more. It had been good fun, after 
all, this three weeks’ life on the .“Bertha Millner,” a stronge episode 
cut out from the normal circle of his conventional life. He ran 
over the incidents of the cruise — Kitchell, the turtle hunt, the find- 


A Sea Mystery 189 

in g of the derelict, the dead captain, the squall, and the awful 
sight of the sinking bark, Moran at the wheel, the grewsome busi- 
ness of the shark-fishing, and last of all that inexplicable lifting 
and quivering of the schooner. He told himself that now he would 
probably never know the explanation of that mystery. 

The day passed in preparations to put to sea again. The deck- 
tubs and hogsheads were stowed below and the tackle cleared away. 
By evening all was ready; they would be under way by daybreak 
the next morning. There was a possibility of their being forced 
to tow the schooner out by means of the dory, so light were the 
airs inside. Once beyond the heads, however, they were sure of a 
breeze. 

About ten o’clock that night, the same uncanny trembling ran 
through the schooner again, and about half an hour later she lifted 
gently once or twice. But after that she was undisturbed. 

Later on in the night — or rather early in the morning — Wilbur 
woke suddenly in his hammock without knowing why, and got up 
and stood listening. The “Bertha Millner” was absolutely quiet. 
The night was hot and still ; the new moon, canted over like a sink- 
ing galleon, was low over the horizon. Wilbur listened intently, for 
now at last he heard something. 

Between the schooner and the shore a gentle sound of splashing 
came to his ears, and an occasional crack as of oars in their locks. 
Was it possible that a boat was there between the schooner and 
the land? What boat, and manned by whom? 

The creaking of oarlocks and the dip of paddles was unmistaka- 
ble. 

Suddenly Wilbur raised his voice in a great shout: 

“Boat ahoy!” 

There was no answer; the noise of oars grew fainter. Moran 
came running out of her cabin, swinging into her coat as she ran. 

“What is it — what is it?” 

“A boat, I think, right off the schooner here. Hark — there — 
did you hear the oars?” 

“You’re right; call the hands, get the dory over, we’ll follow that 
boat right up. Hello, forward there, Charlie, all hands, tumble 
out !” 

Then Wilbur and Moran caught themselves looking into each 
other’s eyes. At once something — perhaps the latent silence of the 
schooner — told them there was to be no answer. The two ran for- 
ward; Moran swung herself into the fo’castle hatch, and without 


190 Moran of the Lady Letty 

using the ladder dropped to the deck below. In an instant her 
voice came up the hatch : 

“The bunks are empty — they’re gone — abandoned us.” She 
came up the ladder again. 

'‘Look,” said Wilbur, as she regained the deck. “The dory’s 
gone ; they’ve taken it. It was our only boat ; we can’t get ashore.” 

“Cowardly, superstitious rats, I should have expected this. 
They would be chopped in bits before they would stay longer on 
board this boat — they and their Feng shui” 

When morning came the deserters could be made out camped 
on the shore, near to the beached dory. What their intentions were 
could not be conjectured. Ridden with all manner of nameless 
Oriental superstitions, it was evident that the Chinamen preferred 
any hazard of fortune to remaining longer upon the schooner. 

“Well, can we get along without them?” said Wilbur. “Can 
we two work the schooner back to port ourselves?” 

“We’ll try it on, anyhow, mate,” said Moran; “we might get 
her into San Diego, anyhow.” 

The Chinamen had left plenty of provisions on board, and Moran 
cooked breakfast. Fortunately, by eight o’clock a very light west- 
erly breeze came up. Moran arid Wilbur cast off the gaskets and 
set the fore and main sails. 

Wilbur was busy at the forward bitts preparing to cast loose 
from the kelp, and Moran had taken up her position at the wheel, 
when suddenly she exclaimed: 

“Sail ho! — and in God’s name what kind of a sail do you 
call it?” 

In fact a strange-looking craft had just made her appearance 
at the entrance of Magdalena Bay. 


Beach-Combers 


191 


VII 

BEACH-COMBERS 

Wilbur returned aft and joined Moran on the quarterdeck. 
She was already studying the stranger through the glass. 

“That’s a new build of boat to me,” she muttered, giving Wil- 
bur the glass. Wilbur looked long and carefully. The newcomer 
was of the size and much the same shape as a caravel of the fif- 
teenth century — high as to bow and stern, and to all appearances as 
seaworthy as a soup-tureen. Never but in the old prints had 
Wilbur seen such an extraordinary boat. She carried a single 
mast, which listed forward; her lugsail was stretched upon dozens 
of bamboo yards ; she drew hardly any water. Two enormous red 
eyes were painted upon either side of her high, blunt bow, while 
just abaft the waist projected an enormous oar, or sweep, full forty 
feet in length — longer, in fact, than the vessel herself. It acted 
partly as a propeller, partly as a rudder. 

“They’re heading for us,” commented Wilbur as Moran took 
the glass again. 

“Right,” she answered; adding upon the moment: “Huh! more 
Chinamen; the thing is alive with coolies; she’s a junk.” 

“Oh!” exclaimed Wilbur, recollecting some talk of Charlie’s 
he had overheard. “I know.” 

“You know?” 

“Yes; these are real beach-combers. I’ve heard of them along 
this coast — heard our Chinamen speak of them. They beach that 
junk every night and camp on shore. They’re scavengers, as you 
might say — pick up what they can find or plunder along shore — 
abalones, shark-fins, pickings of wrecks, old brass and copper, seals, 
perhaps, turtle and shell. Between whiles they fish for shrimp, and 
I’ve heard Kitchell tell how they make pearls by dropping bird-shot 
into oysters. They are Kai-gingh to a man, and, according to 
Kitchell, the wickedest breed of cats that ever cut teeth.” 

The junk bore slowly down upon the schooner. In a few mo- 
ments she had hove to alongside. But for the enormous red eyes 


192 Moran of the Lady Letty 

upon her bow she was innocent of paint. She was grimed and 
shellacked with dirt and grease, and smelled abominably. Her crew 
were Chinamen; but such Chinamen! The coolies of the “Bertha 
Millner” were pampered and effete in comparison. The beach- 
combers, thirteen in number, were a smaller class of men, their 
faces almost black with tan and dirt. Though they still wore the 
queue, their heads were not shaven, and mats and mops of stiff 
black hair fell over their eyes from under their broad, basket- 
shaped hats. 

They were barefoot. None of them wore more than two gar- 
ments — the jeans and the blouse. They were the lowest type of 
men Wilbur had ever seen. The faces were those of a higher 
order of anthropoid apes: the lower portion — jaws, lips, and teeth — 
salient ; the nostrils opening at almost right angles, the eyes tiny 
and bright, the forehead seamed and wrinkled — unnaturally old. 
Their general expression was of simian cunning and a ferocity 
that was utterly devoid of courage. 

“Aye!” exclaimed Moran between her teeth, “if the devil were 
a shepherd, here are his sheep. You don’t come aboard this 
schooner, my friends ! I want to live as long as I can, and die when 
I can’t help it. Boat ahoy!” she called. 

An answer in Cantonese sing-song came back from the junk, 
and the speaker gestured toward the outside ocean. 

Then a long parleying began. For upward of half an hour 
Moran and Wilbur listened to a proposition in broken pigeon En- 
glish made by the beach-combers again and again and yet again, and 
were in no way enlightened. It was impossible to understand. 
Then at last they made out that there was question of a whale. 
Next it appeared the whale was dead; and finally, after a pro- 
longed pantomime of gesturing and pointing, Moran guessed that 
the beach-combers wanted the use of the “Bertha Millner” to trice 
up the dead leviathan while the oil and whalebone were extracted. 

“That must be it,” she said to Wilbur. “That’s what they mean 
by pointing to our masts and tackle. You see, they couldn’t man- 
age with that stick of theirs, and they say they’ll give us a third 
of the loot. We’ll do it, mate, and I’ll tell you why. The wind has 
fallen, and they can tow us out. If it’s a sperm-whale they’ve 
found, there ought to be thirty or forty barrels of oil in him, let 
alone the blubber and bone. Oil is at $50 now, and spermaceti will 
always bring $100. We’ll take it on, mate, but we’ll keep our eyes 
on the rats all the time. I don’t want them aboard at all. Look at 


Beach-Combers 


l 93 

their belts. Not three out of the dozen who aren’t carrying those 
filthy little hatchets. Faugh!” she exclaimed, with a shudder of 
disgust. “Such vipers!” 

What followed proved that Moran had guessed correctly. A 
rope was passed to the “Bertha Millner,” the junk put out its sweeps, 
and to a wailing, eldrich chanting the schooner was towed out of 
the bay. 

“I wonder what Charlie and our China boys will think of this ?” 
said Wilbur, looking shoreward, where the deserters could be seen 
gathered together in a silent, observing group. 

“We’re well shut of them,” growled Moran, her thumbs in her 
belt. “Only, now we’ll never know what was the matter with the 
schooner these last few nights. Hah!” she exclaimed under her 
breath, her scowl thickening, “sometimes I don’t wonder the beasts 
cut.” 

The dead whale was lying four miles out of the entrance of 
Magdalena Bay, and as the junk and the schooner drew near 
seemed like a huge black boat floating bottom up. Over it and 
upon it swarmed and clambered thousands of sea-birds, while all 
around and below the water was thick with gorging sharks. A 
dreadful, strangling decay fouled all the air. 

The whale was a sperm-whale, and fully twice the length of 
the “Bertha Millner.” The work of tricing him up occupied the 
beach-combers throughout the entire day. It was out of the ques- 
tion to keep them off the schooner, and Wilbur and Moran were 
too wise to try. They swarmed the forward deck and rigging like 
a plague of unclean monkeys, climbing with an agility and nimble- 
ness that made Wilbur sick to his stomach. They were unlike any 
Chinamen he had ever seen — hideous to a degree that he had 
imagined impossible in a human being. On two occasions a fight 
developed, and in an instant the little hatchets were flashing like 
the flash of a snake’s fangs. Toward the end of the day one of 
them returned to the junk, screaming like a stuck pig, a bit of his 
chin bitten off. 

Moran and Wilbur kept to the quarter-deck, always within 
reach of the huge cutting-in spades, but the Chinese beach- 
combers were too elated over their prize to pay them much 
attention. 

And indeed the dead monster proved a veritable treasure-trove. 
By the end of the day he had been triced up to the foremast, and all 
hands straining at the windlass had raised the mighty head out of 

I —IV— Norris 


194 Moran of the Lady Letty 

the water. The Chinamen descended upon the smooth, 1)lack body, 
their bare feet sliding and slipping at every step. They held on by 
jabbing their knives into the hide as glacier-climbers do their ice- 
picks. The head yielded barrel after barrel of oil and a fair 
quantity of bone. The blubber was taken aboard the junk, minced 
up with hatchets, and run into casks. 

Last of all, a Chinaman cut a hole through the “case,” and, 
actually descending into the inside of the head, stripped away the 
spermaceti (clear as crystal), and packed it into buckets, which 
were hauled up on the junk’s deck. The work occupied some two 
or three days. During this time the “Bertha Millner” was keeled 
over to nearly twenty degrees by the weight of the dead monster. 
However, neither Wilbur nor Moran made protest. The China- 
men would do as they pleased ; that was said and signed. And 
they did not release the schooner until the whale had been emptied 
of oil and blubber, spermaceti and bone. 

At length, on the afternoon of the third day, the captain of the 
junk, whose name was Hoang, presented himself upon the quarter- 
deck. He was naked to the waist, and his bare brown torso was 
gleaming with oil and sweat. His queue was coiled like a snake 
around his neck, his hatchet thrust into his belt. 

“Well?” said Moran, coming up. 

Wilbur caught his breath as the two stood there facing each 
other, so sharp was the contrast. The man, the Mongolian, small, 
weazened, leather-colored, secretive — a strange, complex creature, 
steeped in all the obscure mystery of the East, nervous, ill at ease; 
and the girl, the Anglo-Saxon, daughter of the Northmen, huge, 
blond, big-boned, frank, outspoken, simple of composition, open as 
the day, bareheaded, her great ropes of sandy hair falling over her 
breast and almost to the top of her knee-boots. As he looked at 
the two, Wilbur asked himself where else but in California could 
such abrupt contrasts occur. 

“All light,” announced Hoang; “catchum all oil, catchum all 
bone, catchum all same plenty many. You help catchum, now you 
catchum pay. Sabe ?” 

The three principals came to a settlement with unprecedented 
directness. Like all Chinamen, Hoang was true to his promises, 
and he had already set apart three and a half barrels of spermaceti, 
ten barrels of oil, and some twenty pounds of bone as the schooner’s 
share in the transaction. There was no discussion over the matter. 
He called their attention to the discharge of his obligations, and 


Beach-Combers 


l 95 

hurried away to summon his men aboard and get the junk under 
way again. 

The beach-combers returned to their junk, and Wilbur and 
Moran set about cutting the carcass of the whale adrift. They 
found it would be easier to cut away the hide from around 
the hooks and loops of the tackle than to unfasten the tackle 
itself. 

“The knots are jammed hard as steel,” declared Moran. “Hand 
up that cutting-in spade ; stand by with the other and cut loose at 
the same time as I do, so we can ease off the strain on these lines at 
the same time. Ready there, cut !” Moran set free the hook in the 
loop of black skin in a couple of strokes, but Wilbur was more 
clumsy; the skin resisted. He struck at it sharply with the heavy 
spade ; the blade hit the iron hook, glanced off, and opened a large 
slit in the carcass below the head. A gush of entrails started from 
the slit, and Moran swore under her breath. 

“Ease away, quick there ! You’ll have the mast out of her next 
— steady ! Hold your spade — what’s that ?” 

Wilbur had nerved himself against the dreadful stench he ex- 
pected would issue from the putrid monster, but he was surprised 
to note a pungent, sweet, and spicy odor that all at once made thick 
the air about him. It was an aromatic smell, stronger than that of 
the salt ocean, strongerrjeven than the reek of oil and blubber from 
the schooner’s waist — sweet as incense, penetrating as attar, deli- 
cious as a summer breeze. 

“It smells pretty good, whatever it is,” he answered. Moran 
came up to where he stood, and looked at the slit he had made in 
the whale’s carcass. Out of it was bulging some kind of dull white 
matter marbled with gray. It was a hard lump of irregular shape 
and about as big as a hogshead. 

Moran glanced over to the junk, some forty feet distant. The 
beach-combers were hoisting the lug-sail. Hoang was at the steer- 
ing oar. 

“Get that stuff aboard,” she commanded quietly. 

“That !” exclaimed Wilbur, pointing to the lump. 

Moran’s blue eyes were beginning to gleam. 

“Yes, and do it before the Chinamen see you.” 

“But — but I don’t understand.” 

Moran stepped to the quarterdeck, unslung the hammock in 
which Wilbur slept, and tossed it to him. 

“Reeve it up in that ; I’ll pass you a line, and we’ll haul it aboard. 


196 Moran of the Lady Letty 

Godsend, those vermin yonder have got smells enough of their own 
without noticing this. Hurry, mate, I’ll talk afterward.” 

Wilbur went over the side, and standing as best he could upon 
the slippery carcass, dug out the lump and bound it up in the ham- 
mock. 

“Hoh !” exclaimed Moran, with sudden exultation. “There’s a lot 
of it. That’s the biggest lump yet, I’ll be bound. Is that all there 
is, mate ? — look carefully.” Her voice had dropped to a whisper. 

“Yes, yes; that’s all. Careful now when you haul up — Hoang 
has got his eye on you, and so have the rest of them. What do you 
call it, anyhow? Why are you so particular about it? Is it worth 
anything ?” 

“I don’t know — perhaps. We’ll have a look at it, anyway.” 

Moran hauled the stuff aboard, and Wilbur followed. 

“Whew!” he exclaimed with half-closed eyes. “It’s like the 
story of Samson and the dead lion — the sweet coming forth from 
the strong.” 

The schooner seemed to swim in a bath of perfumed air; the 
membrane of the nostrils fairly prinkled with the sensation. Moran 
unleashed the hammock, and going down upon one knee examined 
the lump attentively. 

“It didn’t seem possible,” Wilbur heard her saying to herself; 
“but there can’t be any mistake. It’s the stuff, right enough. I’ve 
heard of such things, but this — but this — ” She rose to her feet, 
tossing back her hair. 

“Well,” said Wilbur, “what do you call it?” 

“The thing to do now,” returned Moran, “is to get clear of here 
as quietly and as quickly as we can, and take this stuff with us. I 
can’t stop to explain now, but it’s big — it’s big. Mate, it’s big as 
the Bank of England.” 

“Those beach-combers are right on to the game, I’m afraid,” 
said Wilbur. “Look, they’re watching us. This stuff would smell 
across the ocean.” 

“Rot the beach-combers ! There’s a bit of wind, thank God, and 
we can do four knots to their one, just let us get clear once.” 

Moran dragged the hammock back into the cabin, and, returning 
upon deck, helped Wilbur to cut away the last tricing tackle. The 
schooner righted slowly to an even keel. Meanwhile the junk had 
set its one lug-sail and its crew had run out the sweeps. Hoang 
took the steering sweep and worked the junk to a position right 
across the “Bertha’s” bows, some fifty feet ahead. 


Beach-Combers 


r 97 


“They’re watching us, right enough,” said Wilbur. 

“Up your mains’l,” ordered Moran. The pair set the fore and 
main sails with great difficulty. Moran took the wheel and Wilbur 
went forward to cast off the line by which the schooner had beeti 
tied up to one of the whale’s flukes. 

“Cut it !” cried the girl. “Don’t stop to cast off.” 

There was a hail from the beach-combers ; the port sweeps dipped 
and the junk bore up nearer. 

“Hurry!” shouted Moran, “don’t mind them. Are we clear 
for’ard — what’s the trouble? Something’s holding her.” The 
schooner listed slowly to starboard and settled by the head. 

“All clear!” cried Wilbur. 

“There’s something wrong!” exclaimed Moran; “she’s settling 
for’ard.” Hoang hailed the schooner a second time. 

“We’re still settling,” called Wilbur from the bows, “what’s the 
matter ?” 

“Matter that she’s taking water,” answered Moran wrathfully. 
“She’s started something below, what with all that lifting and danc- 
ing and tricing up.” 

Wilbur ran back to the quarterdeck. 

“This is a bad fix,” he said to Moran. “Those chaps are coming 
aboard again. They’re on to something, and, of course, at just 
this moment she begins to leak.” 

“They are after that ambergris,” said Moran between her teeth. 
“Smelled it, of course — the swine!” 

“Ambergris ?” 

“The stuff we found in the whale. That’s ambergris.” 
“Well?” 

“Well!” shouted Moran, exasperated. “Do you know that we 
have found a lump that will weigh close to 250 pounds, and do 
you know that ambergris is selling in San Francisco at $40 
an ounce ? Do you know that we have picked up nearly 
$1^0,000 right out here in the ocean and are in a fair way to 
lose it all?” 

“Can’t we run for it?” 

“Run for it in a boat that’s taking water like a sack ! Our dory’s 
gone. Suppose we get clear of the junk, and the ‘Bertha’ sank? 
Then what? If we only had our crew aboard; if we were only ten 
to their dozen — if we were only six — by Jupiter! I’d fight them 
for it.” 

The two enormous red eyes of the junk loomed alongside and 


198 Moran of the Lady Letty 

stared over into the “Bertha’s” waist. Hoang and seven of the 
coolies swarmed aboard. 

“What now?” shouted Moran, coming forward to meet them, 
her scowl knotting her flashing eyes together. “Is this ship yours 
or mine? We’ve done your dirty work for you. I want you clear 
of my deck.” Wilbur stood at her side, uncertain what to do, but 
ready for anything she should attempt. 

“I tink you catchum someting, smellum pretty big,” said 
Hoang, his ferret glance twinkling about the schooner. 

“I catchum nothing — nothing but plenty bad stink,” said 
Moran. “No, you don’t !” she exclaimed, putting herself in Hoang’s 
way as he made for the cabin. The other beach-combers came 
crowding up; Wilbur even thought he saw one of them loosening 
his hatchet in his belt. 

“This ship’s mine,” cried Moran, backing to the cabin door. 
Wilbur followed her, and the Chinamen closed down upon the 
pair. 

“It’s not much use, Moran,” he muttered. “They’ll rush us in 
a minute.” 

“But the ambergris is mine — is mine,” she answered, never tak- 
ing her eyes from the confronting coolies. 

“We findum w’ale,” said Hoang ; “you no find w’ale ; him b’long 
to we — eve’yt’ing in um w’ale b’long to we, savvy?” 

“No, you promised us a third of everything you found.” 

Even in the confusion of the moment it occurred to Wilbur that 
it was quite possible that at least two-thirds of the ambergris did 
belong to the beach-combers by right of discovery. After all, it 
was the beach-combers who had found the whale. He could never 
remember afterward whether or no he said as much to Moran at 
the time. If he did, she had been deaf to it. A fury of wrath and 
desperation suddenly blazed in her blue eyes. Standing at her 
side, Wilbur could hear her teeth grinding upon each other. She 
was blind to all danger, animated only by a sense of injustice and 
imposition. 

Hoang uttered a sentence in Cantonese. One of the coolies 
jumped forward, and Moran’s fist met him in the face and brought 
him to his knees. Then came the rush Wilbur had foreseen. He 
had just time to catch a sight of Moran at grapples with Hoang 
when a little hatchet glinted over his head. He struck out savagely 
into the thick of the group — and then opened his eyes to find Moran 
washing the blood from his hair as he lay on the deck with his head 


Beach-Combers 


199 

in the hollow of her arm. Everything was quiet. The beach-combers 
were gone. 

“Hello, what — what — what is it?” he asked, springing to his 
feet, his head swimming and smarting. “We had a row, didn't we? 
Did they hurt you ? Oh, I remember ; I got a cut over the head — 
one of their hatchet men. Did they hurt you ?” 

“They got the loot,” she growled. “Filthy vermin! And just 
to make everything pleasant, the schooner's sinking.” 


200 


Moran of the Lady Letty 


VIII 

A RUN FOR LAND 

“Sinking!” exclaimed Wilbur, 

Moran was already on her feet. “We’ll have to beach her,” she 
cried, “and we’re six miles out. Up y’r jib, mate !” The two set the 
jib, flying- jib, and staysails. 

The fore and main sails were already drawing, and under all 
the spread of her canvas the “Bertha” raced back toward the 
shore. 

But by the time she was within the head of the bay her stern 
had settled to such an extent that the forefoot was clear of the 
water, the bowsprit pointing high into the heavens. Moran was at 
the wheel, her scowl thicker than ever, her eyes measuring the 
stretch of water that lay between the schooner and the shore. 

“She’ll never make it in God’s world,” she muttered as she lis- 
tened to the wash of the water in the cabin under her feet. In the 
hold, empty barrels were afloat, knocking hollowly against each 
other. “We’re in a bad way, mate.” 

“If it comes to that,” returned Wilbur, surprised to see her 
thus easily downcast, who was usually so indomitable — “if it comes 
to that, we can swim for it — a couple of planks — ” 

“Swim?” she echoed; “I’m not thinking of that; of course we 
could swim.” 

“What then?’ 

“The sharks !” 

Wilbur’s teeth clicked sharply together. He could think of 
nothing to say. 

As the water gained between decks the schooner’s speed dwin- 
dled, and at the same time as she approached the shore the wind, 
shut off by the land, fell away. By this time the ocean was not 
four inches below the stern-rail. Two miles away was the nearest 
sand-spit. Wilbur broke out a distress signal on the foremast, in the 
hope that Charlie and the deserters might send off the dory to their 
assistance. But the deserters were nowhere in sight. 


A Run for Land 


201 


“What became of the junk?” he demanded suddenly of Moran. 
She motioned to the westward with her head. “Still lying out- 
side.” 

Twenty minutes passed. Once only Moran spoke. 

“When she begins to go,” she said, “she’ll go with a rush. Jump 
pretty wide, or you’ll get caught in the suction.” 

The two had given up all hope. Moran held grimly to the 
wheel as a mere matter of form. Wilbur stood at her side, his 
clinched fists thrust into his pockets. The eyes of both were fixed 
on the yellow line of the distant beach. By and by Moran turned 
to him with an odd smile. 

“We’re a strange pair to die together,” she said. Wilbur met 
her eyes an instant, but finding no reply, put his chin in the air as 
though he would have told her she might well say that. 

“A strange pair to die together,” Moran repeated; “but we can 
do that better than we could have” — she looked away from him — 
“could have lived together,” she finished, and smiled again. 

“And yet,” said Wilbur, “these last few weeks here on board 
the schooner, we have been through a good deal — together. I don’t 
know,” he went on clumsily, “I don’t know when I’ve been — when 
I’ve had — I’ve been happier than these last weeks. It is queer, isn’t 
it? I know, of course, what you’ll say. I’ve said it to myself often 
of late. I belong to the city and to my life there, and you — you 
belong to the ocean. I never knew a girl like you — never knew a 
girl could be like you. You don’t know how extraordinary it all 
seems to me. You swear like a man, and you dress like a man, 
and I don’t suppose you've ever been associated with other women ; 
and you’re strong — I know you are as strong as I am. You have no 
idea how different you are to the kind of girl I’ve known. Imagine 
my kind of girl standing up before Hoang and those cutthroat 
beach-combers with their knives and hatchets. Maybe it’s because 
you are so unlike my kind of girl that — that things are as they are 
with me. I don’t know. It’s a queer situation. A month or so 
ago I was at a tea in San Francisco, and now I’m aboard a shark- 
fishing schooner sinking in Magdalena Bay; and I’m with a girl 
that — that — that I— well, I’m with you, and, well, you know how it 
is — I might as well say it — I love you more than I imagined I ever 
could love a girl.” 

Moran’s frown came back to her forehead. 

“I don’t like that kind of talk,” she said; “I am not used to it, 
and I don’t know how to take it. Believe me,” she said with a half 


202 Moran of the Lady Letty 

laugh, “it’s all wasted. I never could love a man. I’m not made 
for men.” 

“No,” said Wilbur, “nor for other women either.” 

“Nor for other women either.” 

Wilbur fell silent. In that instant he had a distinct vision of 
Moran’s life and character, shunning men and shunned of women, a 
strange, lonely creature, solitary as the ocean whereon she lived, 
beautiful after her fashion; as yet without sex, proud, untamed, 
splendid in her savage, primal independence — a thing untouched 
and unsullied by civilization. She . seemed to him some Brada- 
mante, some mythical Brunhilde, some Valkyrie of the legends, born 
out of season, lost and unfamiliar in this end-of-the-century time. 
Her purity was the purity of primeval glaciers. He could easily see 
how to such a girl the love of a man would appear only in the light 
of a humiliation — a degradation. And yet she could love, else how 
had he been able to love her? Wilbur found himself — even at that 
moment — wondering how the thing could be done — wondering to 
just what note the untouched cords would vibrate. Just how she 
should be awakened one morning to find that she — Moran, sea-rover, 
virgin unconquered, without law, without land, without sex — was, 
after all, a woman. 

“By God, mate!” she exclaimed of a sudden. “The barrels are 
keeping us up — the empty barrels in the hold. Hoh ! we’ll make 
land yet.” 

It was true. The empty hogsheads, destined for the storage of 
oil, had been forced up by the influx of the water to the roof of the 
hold, and were acting as so many buoys — the schooner could sink 
no lower. An hour later, the quarterdeck all awash, her bow 
thrown high into the air, listing horribly to starboard, the “Bertha 
Millner” took ground on the shore of Magdalena Bay at about the 
turn of the tide. 

Moran swung herself over the side, hip deep in the water, and, 
wading ashore with a line, made fast to the huge skull of a whale 
half buried in the sand at that point. 

Wilbur followed. The schooner had grounded upon the south- 
ern horn of the bay and lay easily on a spit of sand. They could 
not examine the nature of the leak until low water the next 
morning. 

“Well, here we are,” said Moran, her thumbs in her belt. “What 
next? We may be here for two days, we may be here for two years. 
It all depends upon how bad a hole she has. Have we ‘put in for 


A Run for Land 


203 

repairs/ or have we been cast away ? Can’t tell till to-morrow morn- 
ing. Meanwhile, I’m hungry.” 

Half of the stores of the schooner were water-soaked, but upon 
examination Wilbur found that enough remained intact to put 
them beyond all fear for the present. 

“There’s plenty of water up the creek,” he said, “and we can 
snare all the quail we want; and then there’s the fish and abalone. 
Even if the stores were gone we could make out very well.” 

The schooner’s cabin was full of water and Wilbur’s hammock 
was gone, so the pair decided to camp on shore. In that torrid 
weather to sleep in the open air was a luxury. 

In great good spirits the two sat down to their first meal on 
land. Moran cooked a supper that, barring the absence of coffee, 
was delicious. The whiskey was had from aboard, and they 
pledged each other, standing up, in something over two stiff fingers. 

“Moran,” said Wilbur, “you ought to have been born a man.” 

“At all events, mate,” she said — “at all events, I’m not a girl.” 

“No!” exclaimed Wilbur, as he filled his pipe. “No, you’re 
just Moran, Moran of the ‘Lady Letty.’ ” 

“And I’ll stay that, too,” she said decisively. 

Never had an evening been more beautiful in Wilbur’s eyes. 
There was not a breath of air. The stillness was so profound that 
the faint murmur of the blood behind the ear-drums became an 
oppression. The ocean tiptoed toward the land with tiny rustling 
steps. The west was one gigantic stained window, the ocean floor 
a solid shimmer of opalescence. Behind them, sullen purples 
marked the horizon, hooded with mountain crests, and after a long 
while the moon shrugged a gleaming shoulder into view. 

Wilbur, dressed in Chinese jeans and blouse, with Chinese 
wicker sandals on his bare feet, sat with his back against the whale’s 
skull, smoking quietly. For a long time there was no conversa- 
tion ; then at last : 

“No,” said Moran in a low voice. “This is the life I’m made 
for. In six years I’ve not spent three consecutive weeks on land. 
Now that Eilert” (she always spoke of her father by his first name), 
“now that Eilert is dead, I’ve not a tie, not a relative, not even a 
friend, and I don’t wish it. 

“But the loneliness of the life, the solitude,” said Wilbur, “that’s 
what I don’t understand. Did it ever occur to you that the best hap- 
piness is the happiness that one shares?” 

Moran clasped a knee in both hands and looked out to sea. She 


204 Moran of the Lady Letty 

never wore a hat, and the red Tight of the afterglow was turning 
her rye-hued hair to saffron. 

“Hoh !” she exclaimed, her heavy voice pitched even lower than 
usual. “Who could understand or share any of my pleasures, or 
be happy when I’m happy? And, besides, I’m happiest when I’m 
alone — I don’t want any one.” 

“But,” hesitated Wilbur, “one is not always alone. After all, 
you are a girl, and men, sailormen especially, are beasts when it’s 
a question of a woman — an unprotected woman.” 

“I’m stronger than most men,” said Moran simply. “If you, 
for instance, had been like some men, I should have fought you. 
It wouldn’t have been the first time,” she added, smoothing one huge 
braid between her palms. 

Wilbur looked at her with intent curiosity — noted again, as if 
for the first time, the rough, blue overalls thrust into the shoes ; 
the coarse flannel shirt open at the throat; the belt with its sheath- 
knife; her arms big and white and tattooed in sailor fashion; her 
thick, muscular neck; her red face, with its pale blue eyes and al- 
most massive jaw; and her hair, her heavy, yellow, fragrant hair, 
that lay over her shoulder and breast, coiling and looping in 
her lap. 

“No,” he said, with a long breath, “I don’t make it out. I 
knew you were out of my experience, but I begin to think now that 
you are out of even my imagination. You are right, you should 
keep to yourself. You should be alone — your mate isn’t made yet. 
You are splendid just as you are,” while under his breath he added, 
his teeth clinching, “and God ! but I love you.” 

It was growing late, the stars were all out, the moon riding high. 
Moran yawned : 

“Mate, I think I’ll turn in. We’ll have to be at that schooner 
early in the morning, and I make no doubt she’ll give us plenty to 
do.” Wilbur hesitated to reply, waiting to take his cue from what 
next she should say. “It’s hot enough to sleep where we are,” she 
added, “without going aboard the 'Bertha,’ though we might have 
a couple of blankets off to lie on. This sand’s as hard as a plank.” 

Without answering, Wilbur showed her a couple of blanket- 
rolls he had brought off while he was unloading part of the stores 
that afternoon. They took one apiece and spread them on the sand 
by the bleached whale’s skull. Moran pulled off her boots and 
stretched herself upon her blanket with absolute unconcern, her 
hands clasped under her head. Wilbur rolled up his coat for a 


A Run for Land 205 

pillow and settled himself for the night with an assumed self-pos- 
session. There was a long silence. Moran yawned again. 

I pulled the heel off my boot this morning,” she said lazily, 
“and I’ve been limping all day.” 

I noticed it, ’ answered Wilbur. “Kitchell had a new pair 
aboard somewhere, if they’re not spoiled by the water now.” 

“Yes?” she said indifferently; “we’ll look them up in the 
morning.” 

Again there was silence. 

“I wonder,” she began again, staring up into the dark, “if 
Charlie took that frying-pan off with him when he went?” 

“I don’t know. He probably did.” 

“It was the only thing we had to cook abalones in. Make me 
think to look into the galley to-morrow. . . . This ground’s as 
hard as nails, for all your blankets. . . . Well, good-night, mate; 
I’m going to sleep.” 

“Good-night, Moran.” 

Three hours later Wilbur, who had not closed his eyes, sat up 
and looked at Moran, sleeping quietly, her head in a pale glory of 
hair; looked at her, and then around him at the silent, deserted 
land. 

“I don’t know,” he said to himself. “Am I a right-minded 
man and a thoroughbred, or a mush-head, or merely a prudent, 
sensible sort of chap that values his skin and bones? I’d be glad 
to put a name to myself.” Then, more earnestly he added: “Do I 
love her too much, or not enough, or love her the wrong way, or 
how ?” He leaned toward her, so close that he could catch the savor 
of her breath and the smell of her neck, warm with sleep. The 
sleeve of the coarse blue shirt was drawn up, and it seemed to him 
as if her bare arm, flung out at full length, had some sweet aroma 
of its own. Wilbur drew softly back. 

“No,” he said to himself decisively; “no, I guess I am a thor- 
oughbred after all.” It was only then that he went to sleep. 

When he awoke the sea was pink with the sunrise, and one of 
the bay heads was all distorted and stratified by a mirage. It was 
hot already. Moran was sitting a few paces from him, braiding 
her hair. 

“Hello, Moran!” he said, rousing up; “how long have you 
been up?” 

“Since before sunrise,” she said; “I’ve had a bath in the cove 
where the creek runs down. I saw a jack-rabbit.” 


206 


Moran of the Lady Letty 

“Seen anything of Charlie and the others ?” 

“They’ve camped on the other side of the bay. But look yon- 
der,” she added. 

The junk had come in overnight, and was about a mile and a 
half from shore. 

“The deuce !” exclaimed Wilbur. “What are they after ?” 

“Fresh water, I guess,” said Moran, knotting the end of a braid. 
“We’d better have breakfast in a hurry, and turn to on the ‘Bertha.’ 
The tide is going out fast.” 

While they breakfasted they kept an eye on the schooner, watch- 
ing her sides and flanks as the water fell slowly away. 

“Don’t see anything very bad yet,” said Wilbur. 

“It’s somewhere in her stern,” remarked Moran. 

In an hour’s time the “Bertha Millner” was high and dry, and 
they could examine her at their leisure. It was Moran who found 
the leak. 

“Pshaw !” she exclaimed, with a half-laugh, “we can stick that 
up in half an hour.” 

A single plank had started away from the stern-post ; that was 
all. Otherwise the schooner was as sound as the day she left San 
Francisco. Moran and Wilbur had the damage repaired by noon, 
nailing the plank into its place and caulking the seams with lamp- 
wick. Nor could their most careful search discover any further 
injury. 

“We’re ready to go,” said Moran, “so soon as she’ll float. We 
can dig away around the bows here, make fast a line to that rock 
out yonder, and warp her oif at next high tide. Hello ! who’s 
this?” 

It was Charlie. While the two had been at work, he had come 
around the shore unobserved, and now stood at some little distance, 
smiling at them calmly. 

“Well, what do you want?” cried Moran angrily. “If you had 
your rights, my friend, you’d be keelhauled.” 

“I tink um velly hot day.” 

“You didn’t come here to say that. What do you want?” 

“I come hab talkee-talk.” 

“We don’t want to have any talkee-talk with such vermin as you. 
Get out!” 

Charlie sat down on the beach and wiped his forehead. 

“I come buy one-piecee bacon. China boy no hab got.” 

“We aren’t selling bacon to deserters,” cried Moran; “and I’ll 


A Run for Land 


207 


tell you this, you filthy little monkey: Mr. Wilbur and I are going 
home — back to ’Frisco — this afternoon; and we’re going to leave 
you and the rest of your vipers to rot on this beach, or to be mur- 
dered by beach-combers,’ and she pointed out toward the junk. 
Charlie did not even follow the direction of her gesture, and from 
this very indifference Wilbur guessed that it was precisely because 
of the beach-combers that the Machiavellian Chinaman had wished 
to treat with his old officers. 

“No hab got bacon?” he queried, lifting his eyebrows in sur- 
prise. 

“Plenty; but not for you.” 

Charlie took a buckskin bag from his blouse and counted out a 
handful of silver and gold. 

“I buy um nisi two-piecee tobacco.” 

“Look here,” said Wilbur deliberately; “don’t you try to flim- 
flam us, Charlie. We know, you too well. You don’t want bacon 
and you don’t want tobacco.” 

“China boy heap plenty much sick. Two boy velly sick. I tink 
um die pretty soon to-molla. You catch um slop-chest ; you gib me 
five, seven liver pill. Sabe?” 

“I’ll tell you what you want,” cried Moran, aiming a forefinger 
at him, pistol fashion; “you’ve got a blue funk because those Kai- 
gingh beach-combers have come into the bay, and you’re more 
frightened of them than you are of the schooner; and now you 
want us to take you home.” 

“How muchee?” 

“A thousand dollars.” 

Wilbur looked at her in surprise. He had expected a refusal. 

“You no hab got liver pill?” inquired Charlie blandly. 

Moran turned her back on him. She and Wilbur conferred in 
a low voice. 

“We’d better take them back, if we decently can,” said Moran. 
“The schooner is known, of course, in ’Frisco. She went out with 
Kitchell and a crew of coolies, and she comes back with you and I 
aboard, and if we tell the truth about it, it will sound like a lie, 
and we’ll have no end of trouble. Then again, can just you and I 
work the 'Bertha’ into port? In these kind of airs it’s plain work, 
but suppose we have dirty weather?. I’m not so sure.” 

“I gib you ten dollah fo’ ten liver pill,” said Charlie. 

“Will you give us a thousand dollars to set you down in San 
Francisco ?” 


208 


Moran of the Lady Letty 

Charlie rose. “I go back. I tell um China boy what you say 
’bout liver pill. Bime-by I come back.” 

'‘That means he’ll take our offer back to his friends,” said 
Wilbur, in a low voice. “You best hurry chop-chop,” he called 
after Charlie ; “we go home pretty soon !” 

“He knows very well we can’t get away before high tide to- 
morrow,” said Moran. “He’ll take his time.” 

Later on in the afternoon Moran and Wilbur saw a small boat 
put off from the junk and make a landing by the creek. The 
beach-combers were taking on water. The boat made three trips 
before evening, but the beach-combers made no show of molesting 
the undefended schooner, or in any way interfering with Charlie’s 
camp on the other side of the bay. 

“No!” exclaimed Moran between her teeth, as she and Wilbur 
were cooking supper; “no, they don’t need to; they’ve got about 
a hundred arid fifty thousand dollars of loot on board — our loot, 
too! Good God! it goes against the grain!” 

The moon rose considerably earlier that night, and by twelve 
o’clock the bay was flooded with its electrical whiteness. Wilbur 
and Moran could plainly make out the junk tied up to the kelp off- 
shore. But toward one o’clock Wilbur was awakened by Moran 
shaking his arm. 

“There’s something wrong out there,” she whispered; “some- 
thing wrong with the junk. Hear ’em squealing? Look! look! 
look!” she cried of a sudden; “it’s their turn now!” 

Wilbur could see the crank junk, with its staring red eyes, high 
stern and prow, as distinctly as though at noonday. As he watched, 
it seemed as if a great wave caught her suddenly underfoot. She 
heaved up bodily out of the water, dropped again with a splash, 
rose again, and again fell back into her own ripples, that, widening 
from her sides, broke crisply on the sand at Wilbur’s feet. 

Then the commotion ceased abruptly. The bay was quiet again. 
An hour passed, then two.. The moon began to set. Moran and 
Wilbur, wearied of watching, had turned in again, when they were 
startled to wakefulness by the creak of oarlocks and the sound of 
a boat grounding in the sand. 

The coolies — the deserters from the “Bertha Millner” — were 
there. Charlie came forward. 

“Ge’ lup! Ge' lup!” he said. “Junk all smash! Kai-gingh 
come ashore. I tink him want catch um schooner.” 


The Capture of Hoang 


209 


IX 

THE CAPTURE OF HOANG 

“What smashed the junk? What wrecked her?” demanded 
Moran. 

The deserting Chinamen huddled around Charlie, drawing close, 
as if finding comfort in the feel of each other’s elbows. 

“No can tell,” answered Charlie. “Him shake, then lif’ up all 
the same as we. Bime-by too much lif’ up; him smash all to — 
Four-piecee Chinamen diown.” 

“Drown ! Did any of them drown ?” exclaimed Moran. 

“Four-piecee diown,” reiterated Charlie calmly. “One, thlee, 
five, nine, come asho’. Him other no come.” 

“Where are the ones that came ashore?” asked Wilbur. 

Charlie waved a hand back into the night. “Him make um 
camp topside ole house.” 

“That old whaling-camp,” prompted Moran. Then to Wilbur: 
“You remember — about a hundred yards north the creek?” 

Wilbur, Moran and Charlie had drawn off a little from the 
“Bertha Millner’s” crew. The latter squatted in a line along the 
shore — silent, reserved, looking vaguely seaward through the night. 
Moran spoke again, her scowl thickening: 

“What makes you think the beach-combers want our schooner?” 

“Him catch um schooner sure ! Him want um boat to go home. 
No can get.” 

“Let’s put off to-night — right away,” said Wilbur. 

“Low tide,” answered Moran; “and besides — Charlie, did you 
see them close? Were you near them?” 

“No go muchee close.” 

“Did they have something with them, reeved up in a hammock — 
something that smelled sweet?” 

“Like a joss-stick, for instance?” 

“No savvy ; no can tell. Him try catch um schooner sure. Him 
velly bad China boy. See Yup China boy, velly bad. I b’long 
Sam Yup. Savvy?” 


210 


Moran of the Lady Letty 

“Ah! the Tongs?” 

“Yas. I Sam Yup. Him,” and he pointed to the “Bertha’s 
crew, “Sam Yup. All we Sam Yup; nisi him,” and he waved a 
hand toward the beach-combers’ camp ; “him See Yup. Savvy ?” 

“It’s a Tong row,” said Wilbur. “They’re blood enemies, the 
See Yups and Sam Yups.” 

Moran fell thoughtful, digging her boot-heel into the sand, her 
thumbs hooked into her belt, her forehead gathered into a heavy 
frown. There was a silence. 

“One thing,” she said, at last; “we can’t give up the schooner. 
They would take our stores as well, and then where are we? Ma- 
rooned, by Jove ! How far do you suppose we are from the nearest 
town? Three hundred miles wouldn’t be a bad guess, and they’ve 
got the loot — our ambergris — I’ll swear to that. They didn’t leave 
that aboard when the junk sank.” 

“Look here, Charlie,” she said, turning to the Chinaman. “If 
the beach-combers take the schooner — the ‘Bertha Millner’ — from us, 
we’ll be left to starve on this beach.” 

“I tink um yass.” 

“How are we going to get home? Are you going to let them do 
it? Are you going to let them have our schooner?” 

“I tink no can have.” 

“Look here,” she went on, with sudden energy. “There are 
only nine of them now, to our eight. We’re about even. We can 
fight those swine. I know we can. If we jumped their camp and 
rushed them hard, believe me, we could run them into the sea. 
Mate,” she cried, suddenly facing Wilbur, “are you game? Have 
you got blood in you ? Those beach-comberes are going to attack us 
to-morrow, before high tide — that’s flat. There’s going to be a 
fight anyway. We can’t let them have the schooner. It’s starva- 
tion for us if we do. 

“They mean to make a dash for the ‘Bertha,’ and we’ve got to 
fight them off. If there’s any attacking to be done I propose to do 
it! I propose we jump their camp before it gets light — now — 
to-night — right away — run in on them there, take them by surprise, 
do for one or two of them if we have to, and get that ambergris. 
Then cut back to the schooner, up our sails, and wait for the tide 
to float us off. We can do it — I know we can. Mate, will you back 
me up?” 

“Back you up? You bet I’ll back you up, Moran. But — ” 
Wilbur hesitated. “We could fight them so much more to advan- 


21 I 


The Capture of Hoang 

tage from the deck of the schooner. Why not wait for them 
aboard? We could have our sails up, anyhow, and we could keep 
the beach-combers off till the tide rose high enough to drive them 
back. Why not do that?” 

“I tink bes’ wait topside boat,” assented Charlie. 

“Yes; why not, Moran?” 

“Because,” shouted the girl, “they’ve got our loot. I don’t 
propose to be plundered of $150,000 if I can help it.” 

“Wassa dat?” demanded Charlie. “Hunder fiftee tlousand you 
hab got?” 

“I did have it — we had it, the mate and I. We triced a sperm 
whale for the beach-combers, and when they thought they had 
everything out of him we found a lump of ambergris in him that 
will weigh close to two hundred pounds. Now look here, Charlie. 
The beach-combers have got the stuff. It’s mine — I’m going to 
have it back. Here’s the lay. Your men can fight — you can fight 
yourself. We’ll make it a business proposition. Help me to get 
that ambergris, and if we get it I’ll give each one of the men $1,000, 
and I’ll give you $1,500. You can take that up and be independent 
rich the rest of your life. You can chuck it and rot on this beach, 
for it’s fight or lose the schooner ; you know that as well as I do. 
If you’ve got to fight anyhow, why not fight where it’s going to 
pay the most?” 

Charlie hesitated, pursing his lips. 

“How about this, Moran?” Wilbur broke forth now, unheard 
by Charlie. “I’ve just been thinking; have we got a right to this 
ambergris, after all? The beach-combers found the whale. It was 
theirs. How have we the right to take the ambergris away from 
them any more than the sperm and the oil and the bone ? It’s theirs, 
if you come to that. I don’t know as we’ve the right to it.” 

“Darn you!” shouted Moran in a blaze of fury, “right to it, 
right to it! If I haven’t, who has? Who found it? Those dirty 
monkeys might have stood some show to a claim if they’d held to 
the one-third bargain, and offered to divvy with us when they got 
me where I couldn’t help myself. I don’t say I’d give in now if 
they had — give in to let ’em walk off with a hundred thousand 
dollars that I’ve got as good a claim to as they have! But they’ve 
saved me the trouble of arguing the question. They’ve taken it all, 
all ! And there’s no bargain in the game at all now. Now the stuff 
belongs to the strongest of us, and I’m glad of it. They thought 
they were the strongest and now they’re going to find out. We’re 


212 


Moran of the Lady Letty 

dumped down here on this God-forsaken sand, and there s no law 
and no policemen. The strongest of us are going to live and the 
weakest are going to die. I’m going to live and I’m going to have 
my loot, too, and I’m not going to split fine hairs with these rob- 
bers at this time of day. I’m going to have it all, and that’s the 
law you’re under in this case, my righteous friend!” 

She turned her back upon him, spinning around upon her heel, 
and Wilbur felt ashamed of himself and proud of her. 

“I go talkee-talk to China boy,” said Charlie, coming up. 

For about five minutes the Chinamen conferred together, squat- 
ting in a circle on the beach. Moran paced up and down by the 
stranded dory. Wilbur leaned against the bleached whale-skull, his 
hands in his pockets. Once he looked at his watch. It was nearly 
one o’clock. 

“All light,” said Charlie, coming up from the group at last; 
“him fight plenty.” 

“Now,” exclaimed Moran, “we’ve no time to waste. What 
arms have we got?” 

“We’ve got the cutting-in spades,” said Wilbur ; “there’s five of 
them. They’re nearly ten feet long, and the blades are as sharp as 
razors; you couldn’t want better pikes.” 

“That’s an idea,” returned Moran, evidently willing to forget 
her outburst of a moment before, perhaps already sorry for it. The 
party took stock of their weapons, and five huge cutting-in spades, 
a heavy knife from the galley, and a revolver of doubtful effective- 
ness were divided among them. The crew took the spades, Charlie 
the knife, and Wilbur the revolver. Moran had her own knife, a 
haftless dirk, such as is affected by all Norwegians, whether lands- 
men or sailors. They were examining this armament and Moran 
was suggesting a plan of attack, when Hoang, the leader of the 
beach-combers, and one other Chinaman appeared some little dis- 
tance below them on the beach. The moon was low and there was 
no great light, but the two beach-combers caught the flash of the 
points of the spades. They halted and glanced narrowly and sus- 
piciously at the group. 

“Beasts !” muttered Moran. “They are up to the game — there’s 
no surprising them now. Talk to him, Charlie ; see what he wants.” 

Moran, Wilbur, and Charlie came part of the way toward Hoang 
and his fellow, and paused some fifteen feet distant, and a long 
colloquy ensued. It soon became evident, however, that in reality 
Hoang wanted nothing of them, though with great earnestness he 


The Capture of Hoang 213 

asserted his willingness to charter the “Bertha Millner” back to 
San Francisco. 

“That’s not his game at all,” said Moran to Wilbur, in a low 
tone, her eyes never leaving those of the beach-comber. “He’s 
pretty sure he could seize the ‘Bertha’ and never pay us a stiver. 
They’ve come down to spy on us, and they’re doing it, too. There’s 
no good trying to rush that camp now. They’ll go back and tell 
the crew that we know their lay.” 

It was still very dark. Near the hulk of the beached “Bertha 
Millner” were grouped her crew, each armed with a long and lance- 
like cutting-in spade, watching and listening to the conference of 
the chiefs. The moon, almost down, had flushed blood-red, violent- 
ly streaking the gray, smooth surface of the bay with her reflection. 
The tide was far out, rippling quietly along the reaches of wet 
sand. In the pauses of the conference the vast, muffling silence 
shut down with the abruptness of a valve suddenly closed. 

How it happened, just who made the first move, in precisely 
what manner the action had been planned, or what led up to it, 
Wilbur could not afterward satisfactorily explain. There was a 
rush forward — he remembered that much — a dull thudding of 
feet over the resounding beach surface, a moment’s writhing strug- 
gle with a half-naked brown figure that used knife and nail and 
tooth, and then the muffling silence again, broken only by the sound 
of their own panting. In that whirl of swift action Wilbur could 
reconstruct but two brief pictures: the Chinaman, Hoang’s com- 
panion, flying like one possessed along the shore; Hoang himself 
flung headlong into the arms of the “Bertha’s” coolies, and Moran, 
her eyes blazing, her thick braids flying, brandishing her fist as 
she shouted at the top of her deep voice, “We’ve got you, any- 
how !” 

They had taken Hoang prisoner, whether by treachery or not, 
Wilbur did not exactly know; and, even if unfair means had been 
used, he could not repress a feeling of delight and satisfaction as 
he told himself that in the very beginning of the fight that was to 
follow he and his mates had gained the first advantage. 

As the action of that night’s events became more and more 
accelerated, Wilbur could not but notice the change in Moran. It 
was very evident that the old Norse fighting blood of her was all 
astir; brutal, merciless, savage beyond all control. A sort of 
obsession seized upon her at the near approach of battle, a frenzy 
of action that was checked by nothing — that was insensible to all 


214 Moran of the Lady Letty 

restraint. At times it was impossible for him to make her hear 
him, or when she heard to understand what he was saying. Her 
vision contracted. It was evident that she could not see distinctly. 
Wilbur could no longer conceive of her as a woman of the days of 
civilization. She was lapsing back to the eighth century again — 
to the Vikings, the sea-wolves, the Berserkers. 

“Now you’re going to talk,” she cried to Hoang, as the bound 
Chinaman sat upon the beach, leaning his back against the great 
skull. “Charlie, ask him if they saved the ambergris when the 
junk went down — if they’ve got it now?” Charlie put the question 
in Chinese, but the beach-comber only twinkled his vicious eyes 
upon them and held his peace. With the full sweep of her arm, 
her fist clinched till the knuckles whitened, Moran struck him in the 
face. 

“Now will you talk?” she cried. Hoang wiped the blood from 
his face upon his shoulder and set his jaws. He did not answer. 

“You will talk before I’m done with you, my friend ; don’t get 
any wrong notions in your head about that,” Moran continued, her 
teeth clinched. “Charlie,” she added, “is there a file aboard the 
schooner ?” 

“I tink um yass, boss hab got file.” 

“In the tool-chest, isn’t it?” Charlie nodded, and Moran or- 
dered it to be fetched. 

“If we’re to fight that crowd,” she said, speaking to herself and 
in a rapid voice, thick from excitement and passion, “we’ve got to 
know where they’ve hid the loot, and what weapons they’ve got. 
If they have a rifle or a shotgun with them, it’s going to make a 
big difference for us. The other fellow escaped and has gone back 
to warn the rest. It’s fight now, and no mistake.” 

The Chinaman who had been sent aboard the schooner returned, 
carrying a long, rather coarse-grained file. Moran took it from 
him. 

“Now,” she said, standing in front of Hoang, “I’ll give you one 
more chance. Answer me. Did you bring off the ambergris, you 
beast, when your junk sank? Where is it now? How many men 
have you? What arms have you got? Have your men got a 
rifle ?— Charlie, put that all to him in your lingo, so as to make 
sure that he understands. Tell him if he don’t talk I’m going to 
make him very sick.” 

Charlie put the questions in Chinese, pausing after each one. 
Hoang held his peace. 


The Capture of Hoang 215 

“l gave you fair warning/’ shouted Moran angrily, pointing at 
him with the file. “Will you answer?” 

“Him no tell nuttin,” observed Charlie. 

“Fetch a cord here,” commanded Moran. The cord was 
brought, and despite Hoang’s struggles and writhings the file was 
thrust end- ways into his mouth and his jaws bound tightly together 
upon it by means of the cord passed over his head and under his 
chin. Some four inches of the file portruded from his lips. Moran 
took this end and drew it out between the beach-comber’s teeth, 
then pushed it back slowly. 

The hideous rasp of the operation turned Wilbur’s blood cold 
within him. He looked away — out to sea, down the beach — any- 
where, so that he might not see what was going forward. But the 
persistent grind and scrape still assaulted his ears. He turned 
about sharply. 

“I — I — I’ll go down the beach here a ways,” he said quickly. 
“I can’t stand — I’ll keep watch to see if the beach-combers come 
up.” 

A few minutes later he heard Charlie hailing him. 

“Chin-chin heap plenty now,” said he, with a grin, as Wilbur 
came up. 

Hoang sat on the sand in the midst of the circle. The file and 
coil of rope lay on the ground near by. The beach-comber was 
talking in a high-keyed sing-song, but with a lisp. He told them 
partly in pigeon English and partly in Cantonese, which Charlie 
translated, that their men were eight in number, and that they had 
intended to seize the schooner that night, but that probably his own 
capture had delayed their plans. They had no rifle. A shotgun 
had been on board, but had gone down with the sinking of the junk. 
The ambergris had been cut into two lumps, and would be found in a 
couple of old flour-sacks in the stern of the boat in which he and 
his men had come ashore. They were all armed with their little 
hatchets. He thought two of the men carried knives as well. There 
was neither pistol nor revolver among them. 

“It seems to me,” said Wilbur, “that we’ve got the long end.” 

“We catch um boss, too !” said Charlie, pointing to Hoang. 

“And we are better armed,” assented Moran. “We’ve got the 
cutting-in spades.” 

“And the revolver, if it will shoot any further than it will kick.” 

“They’ll give us all the fight we want,” declared Moran. 

“Oh, him Kai-gingh, him fight all same devil.” 


ai6 


Moran of the Lady Letty 

“Give the men brandy, Charlie/’ commanded Moran. “We’ll 
rush that camp right away.” 

The demijohn of spirits was brought down from the “Bertha” 
and passed around, Wilbur and Moran drinking from the tin cup, 
the coolies from the bottle. Hoang was fettered and locked in 
the “Bertha’s” cabin. 

“Now, then, are we ready?” cried Moran. 

“I tink all light,” answered Charlie. 

The party set off down the beach. The moon had long since 
gone down, and the dawn was whitening over the eastern horizon. 
Landward, ragged blankets of morning mist lay close in the hollows 
here and there. It was profoundly still. The stars were still out. 
The surface of Magdalena Bay was smooth as a sheet of gray silk. 

Twenty minutes passed, half an hour, an hour. The party 
tiamped steadily forward, Moran, Wilbur, and Charlie leading, the 
coolies close behind carrying the cutting-in spades over their shoul- 
ders. Slowly and in silence they made the half circuit of the bay. 
The “Bertha Millner” was far behind them by now, a vague gray 
mass in the early morning light. 

“Did you ever fight before?” Moran suddenly demanded of 
Charlie. 

“One time I fight plenty much in San Flancisco in Washington 
stleet. Fight um See Yups.” 

Another half-hour passed. At times when they halted they 
began to hear the faint murmur of the creek, just beyond which 
was the broken and crumbling shanty, relic of an old Portuguese 
whaling-camp, where the beach-combers were camped. At Charlie’s 
suggestion the party made a circuit, describing a half moon, to 
landward, so as to come out upon the enemy sheltered by the sand- 
dunes. Twenty minutes later they crossed the creek about four 
hundred yards from the shore. Here they spread out into a long 
line, and, keeping an interval of about fifteen feet between each of 
them, moved cautiously forward. The unevenness of the sand- 
breaks hid the shore from view, but Moran, Wilbur, and Charlie 
knew that by keeping the creek upon their left they would come 
out directly upon the house. 

A few moments later Charlie held up his hand, and the men 
halted. The noise of the creek chattering into the tidewater of the 
bay was plainly audible just beyond; a ridge of sand, covered thinly 
with sage-brush, and a faint column of smoke rose into the air over 
the ridge itself. They were close in. The coolies were halted, and, 


217 


The Capture of Hoang 

dropping upon their hands and knees, the three leaders crawled to 
the top of the break. Sheltered by a couple of sage-bushes and 
lying flat to the ground, Wilbur looked over and down upon the 
beach. The first object he made out was a crazy, roofless house, 
built of driftwood, the chinks plastered with ’dobe mud, the door 
fallen in. 

Beyond, on the beach, was a flat-bottomed dingy, unpainted and 
foul with dirt. But all around the house the sand had been scooped 
and piled to form a low barricade, and behind this barricade Wilbur 
saw the beach-combers. There were eight of them. They were 
alert and ready, their hatchets in their hands. The gaze of each 
of them was fixed directly upon the sand-break which sheltered the 
“Bertha Millner’s” officers and crew. They seemed to Wilbur to 
look him straight in the eye. They neither moved nor spoke. The 
silence and absolute lack of motion on the part of these small, half- 
naked Chinamen, with their ape-like muzzles and twinkling eyes, 
was ominous. 

There could be no longer any doubts that the beach-combers had 
known of their enemies’ movements and were perfectly aware of 
their presence behind the sand-break. Moran rose to her feet, and 
Wilbur and Charlie followed her example. 

“There’s no use hiding,” she said ; “they know we’re here.” 

Charlie called up the crew. The two parties were ranged face 
to face. Over the eastern rim of the Pacific the blue whiteness of 
the early dawn was turning to a dull, roseate gold at the core of the 
sunrise. The headlands of Magdalena Bay stood black against the 
pale glow ; overhead, the greater stars still shone. The monotonous, 
faint ripple of the creek was the only sound. It was about 3:30 
o’clock. 


J— IV— Norris 


Moran of the Lady Letty 


218 


X 

A BATTLE 

Wilbur had imagined that the fight would be hardly more 
than a wild rush down the slope of the beach, a dash over the 
beach-combers’ breastworks of sand, and a brief hand-to-hand 
scrimmage around the old cabin. In all accounts he had ever read 
of such affairs, and in all ideas he had entertained on the subject, 
this had always been the case. The two bodies had shocked to- 
gether like a college rush, there had been five minutes’ play of 
knife and club and gun, a confused whirl of dust and smoke, and 
all was over before one had time either to think or be afraid. But 
nothing of the kind happened that morning. 

The “Bertha Millner’s” crew, in a long line, Moran at one 
end, Wilbur at the other, and Charlie in the centre, came on to- 
ward the beach-combers, step by step. There was little outcry. 
Each contestant singled out his enemy, and made slowly for him 
with eyes fixed and weapon ready, regardless of the movements of 
his mates. 

“See any' rifles among them, Charlie?” shouted Moran, sud- 
denly breaking the silence. 

“No, I tink no hab got,” answered Charlie. 

Wilbur took another step forward and cocked his revolver. One 
of the beach-combers shouted out something in angry vernacular, 
and Charlie instantly responded. All this time the line had been 
slowly advancing upon the enemy, and Wilbur began to wonder 
how long that heartbreaking suspense was to continue. This was 
not at all what he had imagined. Already he was within twenty 
feet of his man, could see the evil glint of his slant, small eye, and 
the shine of his yellow body, naked to the belt. Still foot by foot 
the forward movement continued. The Chinese on either side had 
begun exchanging insults ; the still, hot air of the tropic dawn was 
vibrant with the Cantonese monosyllables tossed back and forth 
like tennis-balls over the low sand rampart. The thing was de- 
generating into a farce — the “Bertha’s” Chinamen would not fight. 


A Battle 


219 

Back there, under the shelter of the schooner, it was all very 
well to talk, and they had been very brave when they had all flung 
themselves upon Hoang. Here, face to face with the enemy, the 
sun striking off heliograph flashes from their knives and spades, it 
was a vastly different matter. The thing, to Wilbur’s mind, should 
have been done suddenly if it was to be done at all. The best course 
now was to return to camp and try some other plan. Charlie 
shouted a direction to him in pigeon English that he did not under- 
stand, but he answered all right, and moved forward another step 
so as to be in line with the coolie at his left. 

The liquor that he had drunk before starting began suddenly to 
affect him, yet he knew that his head was yet clear. He could not 
bring himself to run away before them all, but he would have given 
much to have discovered a good reason for postponing the fight — 
if fight there was to be. 

He remembered the cocked revolver in his hand, and, suddenly 
raising it, fired point-blank at his man, not fifteen feet away. The 
hammer snapped on the nipple, but the cartridge did not explode. 
Wilbur turned to the Chinaman next him in line, exclaiming ex- 
citedly : 

“Here, say, have you got a knife — something I can fight with? 
This gun’s no good.” 

There was a shout from Moran : 

“Look out, here they come!” 

Two of the beach-combers suddenly sprang over the sand breast- 
works and ran toward Charlie, their knives held low in front of 
them, ready to rip. 

“Shoot ! shoot ! shoot !” shouted Moran rapidly. 

Wilbur’s revolver was a self-cocker. He raised it again, draw- 
ing hard on the trigger as he did so. It roared and leaped in his 
hand, and a whiff of burned powder came to his nostrils. Then 
Wilbur was astonished to hear himself shout at the top of his 
voice : 

“Come on now, get into them— get into them now, everybody !” 

The “Bertha’s” Chinamen were all running forward, three of 
them well in advance of the others. In the rear Charlie was at 
grapples with a beach-comber who fought with a knife in each 
hand, and Wilbur had a sudden glimpse of another sitting on the 
sand with his hand to his mouth, the blood spurting between his 
fingers. 

Wilbur suddenly realized that he held a knife, and that he was 


220 


Moran of the Lady Letty 

directly abreast the sand rampart. How he got the knife he could 
not tell, though he afterward distinctly remembered throwing away 
his revolver, loaded as it was. He had leaped the breastworks, he 
knew that, and between him and the vast bright blur of the ocean 
he saw one of the beach-combers backing away and watching him 
intently, his hatchet in his hand. Wilbur had only time to think 
that he himself would no doubt be killed within the next few mo- 
ments, when this latter halted abruptly, took a step forward, and. 
instead of striking downward, as Wilbur had anticipated, dropped 
upon his knee and struck with all his might at the calf of Wilbur’s 
leg. It was only the thickness of his boots that saved Wilbur from 
being hamstrung where he stood. As it was, he felt the blade bite 
almost to the bone, and heard the blood squelch in the sole of his 
boot, as he staggered for the moment, almost tripping over the man 
in front of him. 

The Chinaman sprang to his feet again, but Wilbur was at him 
in an instant, feeling instinctively that his chance was to close with 
his man, and so bring his own superior weight and strength to 
bear. Again and again he tried to run in and grip the slim yellow 
body, but the other dodged and backed away, as hard to hold as any 
fish. All around and back of him now Wilbur heard the hideous 
sound of stamping and struggling, and the noise of hoarse, quick 
shouts and the rebound of bodies falling and rolling upon the hard, 
smooth beach. The thing had not been a farce, after all. This 
was fighting at last, and there within arm’s length were men grap- 
pling and gripping and hitting one another, each honestly striving 
to kill his fellow — Chinamen all, fighting in barbarous Oriental fash- 
ion with nails and teeth when the knife or hatchet failed. What 
did he, clubman and college man, in that hideous trouble that 
wrought itself out there on that heat-stricken tropic beach under 
that morning’s sun? 

Suddenly there was a flash of red flame, and a billow of thick, 
yellow smoke filled all the air. The cabin was afire. The hatchet- 
man with whom Wilbur was fighting had been backing in this di- 
rection. He was close in when the fire began to leap from the one 
window; now he could go no further. He turned to run sidewise 
between his enemy and the burning cabin. Wilbur thrust his foot 
sharply forward ; the beach-comber tripped, staggered, and before he 
had reached the ground Wilbur had driven home the knife. 

Then suddenly, at the sight of his smitten enemy rolling on the 
ground at his feet, the primitive man, the half-brute of the stone 


A Battle 


221 


age, leaped to life in Wilbur’s breast— he felt his muscles thrilling 
with a strength they had not known before. His nerves, stretched 
tense as harp-strings, were vibrating to a new tune. His blood 
spun through his veins till his ears roared with the rush of it. 
Never had he conceived of such savage exultation as that which 
mastered him at that instant. The knowledge that he could kill 
filled him with a sense of power that was veritably royal. He felt 
physically larger. It was the joy of battle, the horrid exhilaration 
of killing, the animal of the race, the human brute suddenly aroused 
and dominating every instinct and tradition of centuries of civiliza- 
tion. The fight still was going forward. 

Wilbur could hear the sounds of it, though from where he stood 
all sight was shut off by the smoke of the burning house. As he 
turned about, knife in hand, debating what next he should do, a 
figure burst down upon him, shadowy and distorted through the 
haze. 

It was Moran, but Moran as Wilbur had never seen her before. 
Her eyes were blazing under her thick frown like fire under a bush. 
Her arms were bared to the elbow, her heavy ropes of hair flying 
and coiling from her in all directions, while with a voice hoarse 
from shouting she sang, or rather chanted, in her long- forgotten 
Norse tongue, fragments of old sagas, words, and sentences, mean- 
ingless even to herself. The fury of battle had exalted her to a 
sort of frenzy. She was beside herself with excitement. Once 
more she had lapsed back to the Vikings and sea-rovers of the tenth 
century — she was Brunhilde again, a shield-maiden, a Valkyrie, a 
Berserker and the daughter of Berserkers, and like them she fought 
in a veritable frenzy, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, every sense 
exalted, every force doubled, insensible to pain, deaf to all reason. 

Her dirk uplifted, she rushed upon Wilbur, never once pausing 
in her chant. Wilbur shouted a warning to her as she came on, puz- 
zled beyond words, startled back to a consciousness of himself 
again by this insensate attack. 

“Moran! Moran!” he called. “What is it — you’re wrong! It's 
I. It’s Wilbur — your mate, can’t you see?” 

Moran could not see — blind to friend or foe, as she was deaf 
to reason, she struck at him with all the strength of her arm. But 
there was no skill in her fighting now. Wilbur dropped his own 
knife and gripped her right wrist. She closed with him upon the 
instant, clutching at his throat with her one free hand; and as he 
felt her strength — doubled and tripled in the fury of her madness— 


222 


Moran of the Lady Letty 

Wilbur knew that, however easily he had overcome his enemy of 
a moment before, he was now fighting for his very life. 

At first, Wilbur merely struggled to keep her from him — to pre- 
vent her using her dirk. He tried not to hurt her. But what with 
the spirits he had drunk before the attack, what with the excitement 
of the attack itself and the sudden unleashing of the brute in him an 
instant before, the whole affair grew dim and hazy in his mind. 
He ceased to see things in their proportion. His new-found strength 
gloried in matching itself with another strength that was its equal. 
He fought with Moran — not as he would fight with either woman 
or man, or with anything human, for the matter of that. He fought 
with her as against some impersonal force that it was incumbent 
upon him to conquer — that it was imperative he should conquer if 
he wished to live. When she struck, he struck blow for blow, force 
for force, his strength against hers, glorying in that strange contest, 
though he never once forgot that this last enemy was the girl he 
loved. It was not Moran whom he fought; it was her force, her 
determination, her will, her splendid independence, that he set him- 
self to conquer. 

Already she had dropped or flung away the dirk, and their battle 
had become an issue of sheer physical strength between them. It 
was a question now as to who should master the other. Twice she 
had fought Wilbur to his knees, the heel of her hand upon his 
face, his head thrust back between his shoulders, and twice he 
had wrenched away, rising to his feet again, panting, bleeding even, 
but with his teeth set and all his resolution at the sticking-point. 
Once he saw his chance, and planted his knuckles squarely between 
her eyes where her frown was knotted hard, hoping to stun her 
and end the fight once and for all. But the blow did not seem to 
affect her in the least. By this time he saw that her Berserker rage 
had worked itself clear as fermenting wine clears itself, and that 
she knew now with whom she was fighting; and he seemed now to 
understand the incomprehensible, and to sympathize with her joy in 
measuring her strength against his ; and yet he knew that the combat 
was deadly serious, and that more than life was at stake. Moran 
despised a weakling. 

For an instant, as they fell apart, she stood off, breathing hard 
and rolling up her sleeve ; then, as she started forward again, Wilbur 
met her half-way, caught her round the neck and under the arm, 
gripping her left wrist with his right hand behind her ; then, exert- 
ing every ounce of strength he yet retained, be thrust her down and 


A Battle 


223 

from him, until at length, using his hip as a pivot, he swung her off 
her feet, threw her fairly on her back, and held her so, one knee 
upon her chest, his hands closed vise-like on her wrists. 

Then suddenly Moran gave up, relaxing in his grasp all in a 
second, and, to his great surprise, suddenly smiled. 

“Ho! mate,” she exclaimed; “that was a tough one; but I’m 
beaten — you’re stronger than I thought for.” 

Wilbur released her and rose to his feet. 

“Here,” she continued, “give me your hand. I’m as weak as a 
kitten.” As Wilbur helped her to her feet, she put her hand to her 
forehead, where his knuckles had left their mark, and frowned at 
him, but not ill-naturedly. 

“Next time you do that,” she said, “use a rock or a belaying-pin, 
or something that won’t hurt — not your fist, mate.” She looked at 
him admiringly. “What a two-fisted, brawny dray-horse it is! I 
told you I was stronger than most men, didn’t I? But I’m the 
weaker of us two, and that’s a fact. You’ve beaten, mate — I admit 
it; you’ve conquered me, and,” she continued, smiling again and 
shaking him by the shoulder — “and, mate, do you know, I love you 
for it.” 


224 


Moran of the Lady Letty 


XI 

A CHANGE IN LEADERS 

“Well/' exclaimed Wilbur at length, the excitement of the 
fight returning upon him. “We have plenty to do yet. Come on, 
Moran.” 

It was no longer Moran who took the initiative — who was the 
leader. The brief fight upon the shore had changed all that. It 
was Wilbur who was now the master, it was Wilbur who was ag- 
gressive. He had known what it meant to kill. He was no longer 
afraid of anything, no longer hesitating. He had felt a sudden 
quadrupling of all his strength, moral and physical. 

All that was strong and virile and brutal in him seemed to 
harden and stiffen in the moment after he had seen the beach-comber 
collapse limply on the sand under the last strong knife-blow ; and 
a sense of triumph, of boundless self-confidence, leaped within him, 
so that he shouted aloud in a very excess of exhilaration; and 
snatching up a heavy cutting-in spade, that had been dropped in the 
fight near the burning cabin, tossed it high into the air, catching it 
again as it descended, like any exultant savage. 

“Come on !” he cried to Moran ; “where are the beach-combers 
gone? I’m going to get one more before the show is over.” 

The two passed out of the zone of smoke, and reached the 
other side of the burning cabin just in time to see the last of the 
struggle. The whole affair had not taken more than a quarter of 
an hour. In the end the beach-combers had been beaten. Four had 
fled into the waste of sand and sage that lay back of the shore, and 
had not been pursued. A fifth had been almost hamstrung by one 
of the “Bertha's” coolies, and had given himself up. A sixth, 
squealing and shrieking like a tiger-cat, had been made prisoner; 
and Wilbur himself had accounted for the seventh. 

As Wilbur and Moran came around the cabin they saw the 
“Bertha Millner’s” Chinamen in a group, not far from the water's 
edge, reassembled after the fight — panting and bloody, some of them 
bare to the belt, their weapons still in their hands. Here and there 


A Change in Leaders 225 

was a bandaged arm or head ; but their number was complete — or 
no, was it complete? 

“Ought to be one more,” said Wilbur, anxiously hastening for- 
ward. 

As the two came up the coolies parted, and Wilbur saw one of 
them, his head propped upon a rolled-up blouse, lying ominously 
still on the trampled sand. 

“It’s Charlie !” exclaimed Moran. 

“Where's he hurt?” cried Wilbur to the group of coolies. “Jim! 
— where's Jim? Where’s he hurt, Jim?” 

Jim, the only member of the crew besides Charlie who could 
understand or speak English, answered: 

“Kai-gingh him fin’ pistol, you’ pistol ; Charlie him fight plenty ; 
bime-by, when he no see, one-piecee Kai-gingh he come up behin’, 
shoot um Charlie in side — savvy?” 

“Did he kill him? Is he dead?” 

“No, I tinkum die plenty soon; him no savvy nuttin’ now, him 
all-same sleep. Plenty soon bime-by him sleep for good, I tink.” 

There was little blood to be seen when Wilbur gently unwrapped 
the torn sleeve of a blouse that had been used as a bandage. Just 
under the armpit was the mark of the bullet — a small puncture 
already closed, half hidden under a clot or two of blood. The coolie 
lay quite unconscious, his eyes wide open, drawing a faint, quick 
breath at irregular intervals. 

“What do you think, mate ?” asked Moran in a low voice. 

“I think he’s got it through the lungs,” answered Wilbur, frown- 
ing in distress and perplexity. “Poor old Charlie!” 

Moran went down on a knee, and put a finger on the slim, corded 
wrist, yellow as old ivory. 

“Charlie,” she called — “Charlie, here, don’t you know me? 
Wake up, old chap ! It’s Moran. You’re not hurt so very bad, are 
you?” 

Charlie’s eyes closed and opened a couple of times. 

“No can tell,” he answered feebly; “hurt plenty big”; then he 
began to cough. 

Wilbur drew a sigh of relief. “He’s all right !” he exclaimed. 

“Yes, I think he’s all right,” assented Moran. 

“First thing to do now is to get him aboard the schooner,” said 
Wilbur. “We’ll take him right across in the beach-combers’ dory 
here. By Jove !” he exclaimed on a sudden. “The ambergris — I’d 
forgotten all about it.” His heart sank. In the hideous confusion 


226 Moran of the Lady Letty 

of that morning’s work, all thought of the loot had been forgotten, 
Had the battle been for nothing, after all ? The moment the beach- 
combers had been made aware of the meditated attack, it would 
have been an easy matter for them to have hidden the ambergris — 
destroyed it even. 

In two strides Wilbur had reached the beach-combers’ dory and 
was groping in the forward cuddy. Then he uttered a great shout 
of satisfaction. The “stuff” was there, all of it, though the mass 
had been cut into quarters, three parts of it stowed in tea-flails, 
the fourth still reeved up in the hammock netting. 

“We’ve got it!” he cried to Moran, who had followed him. 
“We’ve got it, Moran ! Over $100,000. We’re rich — rich as bood- 
lers, you and I. Oh, it was worth fighting for, after all, wasn’t 
it? Now we’ll get out of here — now we’ll cut for home.” 

“It’s only Charlie I’m thinking about,” answered Moran, hesitat- 
ing. “If it wasn’t for that we’d be all right. I don’t know whether 
we did right, after all, in jumping the camp here. I wouldn’t like 
to feel that I’d got Charlie into our quarrel only to have him 
killed.” 

Wilbur stared at this new Moran in no little amazement. Where 
was the reckless, untamed girl of the previous night, who had sworn 
at him and denounced his niggling misgivings as to right and 
wrong ? 

“Hoh!” he retorted impatiently, “Charlie’s right enough. And, 
besides, I didn’t force him to anything. I — we, that is — took the 
same chances. If I hadn’t done for my man there behind the cabin, 
he would have done for me. At all events, we carried our point. 
We got the loot. They took it from us, and we were strong enough 
to get it back.” 

Moran merely nodded, as though satisfied with his decision, and 
added : 

“Well, what next, mate?” 

“We’ll get back to the ‘Bertha’ now and put to sea as soon as 
we can catch the tide. I’ll send Jim and two of the other men across 
in the dory with Charlie. The rest of us will go around by the 
shore. We’ve got to have a chin-chin with Hoang, if he don’t get 
loose aboard there and fire the boat before we can get back. I 
don’t propose taking these beach-combers back to ’Frisco with us.” 

“What will we do with the two prisoners ?” she asked. 

“Let them go ; we’ve got their arms.” 

The positions of the two were reversed. It was Wilbur who 


A Change in Leaders 227 

assumed control and direction of what went forward, Moran taking 
his advice and relying upon his judgment. 

In accordance with Wilbur’s orders, Charlie was carried aboard 
the dory ; which, with two Chinamen at the oars, and the ambergris 
stowed again into the cuddy, at once set off for the schooner. 
Wilbur himself cut the ropes on the two prisoners, and bade them 
shift for themselves. The rest of the party returned to the “Bertha 
Millner” around the wide sweep of the beach. 

It was only by high noon, under the*flogging of a merciless sun, 
that the entire crew of the little schooner once more reassembled 
under the shadow of her stranded hulk. They were quite worn 
out ; and as soon as Charlie was lifted aboard, and the ambergris — • 
or, as they spoke of it now, the “loot” — was safely stowed in the 
cabin, Wilbur allowed the Chinamen three or four hours’ rest. 
They had had neither breakfast nor dinner; but their exhaustion 
was greater than their hunger, and in a few moments the entire 
half-dozen were stretched out asleep on the forward deck in the 
shadow of the foresail raised for the purpose of sheltering them. 
However, Wilbur and Moran sought out Hoang, whom they found 
as they had left him — bound upon the floor of the cabin. 

“Now we have a talk — savvy?” Wilbur told him as he loosed 
the ropes about his wrists and ankles. “We got our loot back from 
you, old man, and we got one of your men into the bargain. You 
woke up the wrong crowd, Hoang, when you went up against this 
outfit. You’re in a bad way, my friend. Your junk is wrecked; 
all your oil and blubber from the whale is lost; four of your men 
have run away, one is killed, another one we caught and let go, 
another one has been hamstrung ; and you yourself are our prisoner, 
with your teeth filed down to your gums. Now,” continued Wilbur, 
with the profoundest gravity, “I hope this will be a lesson to you. 
Don’t try and get too much the next time. Just be content with 
what is yours by right, or what you are strong enough to keep, 
and don’t try to fight with white people. Other coolies, I don’t say. 
But when you try to get the better of white people you are out of 
your class.” 

The little beach-comber (he was scarcely above five feet) rubbed 
his chafed wrists, and fixed Wilbur with his tiny, twinkling eyes. 

“What you do now?” 

“We go home. I’m going to maroon you and your people here 
on this beach. You deserve that I should let you eat your fists by 
way of table-board; but I’m no such dirt as you. When our men 


228 


Moran of the Lady Letty 

left the schooner they brought off with them a good share of our 
provisions. I’ll leave them here for you — and there’s plenty of 
turtle and abalone to be had for the catching. Some of the Ameri- 
can men-of-war, I believe, come down to this bay for target-practice 
twice a year, and if we speak any on the way up we’ll ask them to call 
here for castaways. That’s what I’ll do for you, and that’s all ! 
If you don’t like it, you can set out to march up the coast till you 
hit a town ; but I wouldn’t advise you to try it. Now what have 
you got to say ?” • 

Hoang was silent. His queue had become unbound for half its 
length, and he plaited it anew, winking his eyes thoughtfully. 

“Well, what do you say?” said Moran. 

“I lose face,” answered Hoang at length, calmly. 

“You lose face? What do you mean?” 

“I lose face,” he insisted; then added: “I heap ’shamed. You 
fightee my China boy, you catchee me. My boy no mo’ hab me fo’ 
boss — savvy? I go back, him no likee me. Mebbe all same killee 
me. I lose face — no mo’ boss.” 

“What a herd of wild cattle !” muttered Wilbur. 

“There’s something in what he says, don’t you think, mate?” 
observed Moran, bringing a braid over each shoulder and stroking 
it according to her habit. 

“We’ll ask Jim about it,” decided Wilbur. 

But Jim at once confirmed Hoang’s statement. “Oh, Kai-gingh 
killum no-good boss, fo’ sure,” he declared. 

“Don’t you think, mate,” said Moran, “we’d better take him up 
to ’Frisco with us? We’ve had enough fighting and killing.” 

So it was arranged that the defeated beach-comber, the whipped 
buccaneer, who had “lost face” and no longer dared look his men 
in the eye, should be taken aboard. 

By four o’clock next morning Wilbur had the hands at work 
digging the sand from around the “Bertha Millner’s” bow. The 
line by which she was to be warped off was run out to the ledge 
of the rock ; fresh water was taken on ; provisions for the marooned 
beach-combers were cached upon the beach; the dory was taken 
aboard, gaskets were cast off, and hatches battened down. 

At high tide, all hands straining upon the warp, the schooner 
was floated off, and under touch of the lightest airs drew almost 
imperceptibly away from the land. They were quite an hour crawl- 
ing out to the heads of the bay. But here the breeze was freshen- 
ing. Moran took the wheel; the flying- jib and staysail were set; 


A Change in Leaders 229 

the wake began to whiten under the schooner’s stern, the forefoot 
sang; the Pacific opened out more and more; and by 12:30 o’clock 
Moran put the wheel over, and, as the schooner’s bow swung to the 
northward, cried to Wilbur : 

“Mate, look your last of Magdalena Bay!” 

Standing at her side, Wilbur turned and swept the curve of the 
coast with a single glance. The vast, heat-scourged hoop of yellow 
sand, the still, smooth shield of indigo water, with its beds of kelp, 
had become insensibly dear to him. It was all familiar, friendly, 
and hospitable. Hardly an acre of that sweep of beach that did not 
hold the impress of his foot. There was the point near by the creek 
where he and Moran first landed to fill the water-casks and to 
gather abalones; the creek itself, where he had snared quail; the 
sand spit with its whitened whale’s skull, where he and Moran had 
beached the schooner ; and there, last of all, that spot of black over 
which still hung a haze of brown-gray smoke, the charred ruins of 
the old Portuguese whaling-cabin, where they had outfought the 
beach-combers. 

For a moment Wilbur and Moran looked back without speak- 
ing. They stood on the quarter-deck; in the sahdow of the main- 
sail, shut off from the sight of the schooner’s crew, and for the 
instant quite alone. 

“Well, Moran, it’s good-by to the old places, isn’t it?” said 
Wilbur at length. 

“Yes,” she said, her deep voice pitched even deeper than usual. 
“Mate, great things have happened there.” 

“It doesn’t look like a place for a Tong row with Chinese pirates, 
though, does it?” he said; but even as he spoke the words, he 
guessed that that was not what he meant. 

“Oh, what did that amount to?” she said, with an impatient 
movement of her head. “It was there that I first knew myself ; 
and knew that, after all, you were a man and I was a woman ; and 
that there was just us — you and I — in the world; and that you 
loved me and I loved you, and that nothing else was worth think- 
ing of.” 

Wilbur shut his hand down over hers as it gripped a spoke of 
the wheel. 

“Moran, I knew that long since,” he said. “Such a month as 
this has been ! Why, I feel as though I had only begun to live since 
I began to love you.” 

“And you do, mate?” she answered — “you do love me, and 


230 Moran of the Lady Letty 

always will? Oh, you don’t know,” she went on, interrupting his 
answer, “you haven’t a guess, how the last two days have changed 
me. Something has happened here” — and she put both her hands, 
over her breast. ‘Tim all different here, mate. It’s all you inside 
here — all you! And it hurts, and I’m proud that it does hurt. 
Oh!” she cried, of a sudden, “I don’t know how to love yet, and I 
do it very badly, and I can’t tell you how I feel, because I can’t even 
tell it to myself. But you must be good to me now.” The deep 
voice trembled a little- “Good to me, mate, and true to me, mate, 
because I’ve only you, and all of me is yours. Mate, be good to 
me, and always be kind to me. I’m not Moran any more. I’m not 
proud and strong and independent, and I don’t want to be lonely. 
I want you — I want you always with me. I’m just a woman 
now, dear — just a woman that loves you with a heart she’s just 
found.” 

Wilbur could find no words to answer. There was something 
so pathetic and at the same time so noble in Moran’s complete 
surrender of herself, and her dependence upon him, her unques- 
tioned trust in him and his goodness, that he was suddenly smitten 
with awe at the sacredness of the obligation thus imposed on him. 
She was his now, to have and to hold, to keep, to protect, and to 
defend — she who was once so glorious of her strength, of her 
savage isolation, her inviolate, pristine maidenhood. All words 
seemed futile and inadequate to him. 

She came close to him, and put her hands upon his shoulders, 
and, looking him squarely in the eye, said : 

“You do love me, mate, and you always will?” 

“Always, Moran,” said Wilbur, simply. He took her in his 
arms, and she laid her cheek against his for a moment, then took 
his head between her hands and kissed him. 

Two days passed. The “Bertha Millner” held steadily to her 
northward course, Moran keeping her well in toward the land. 
Wilbur maintained a lookout from the crow’s-nest in the hope of 
sighting some white cruiser or battleship on her way south for 
target-practice. In the cache of provisions he had left for the 
beach-combers he had inserted a message, written by Hoang, to the 
effect that they might expect to be taken off by a United States 
man-of-war within the month. 

Hoang did not readily recover his “loss of face.” The “Ber- 
tha’s” Chinamen would have nothing to do with this member of a 
hostile Tong; and the humiliated beach-comber kept almost entirely 


A Change in Leaders 231 

to himself, sitting on the forecastle-head all day long, smoking his 
sui-yen-hu and brooding silently to himself. 

Moran had taken the lump of ambergris from out Kitchell’s old 
hammock, and had slung the hammock itself in the schooner’s 
waist, and Charlie was made as comfortable as possible therein. 
They could do but little for him, however ; and he was taken from 
time to time with spells of coughing that racked him with a dread- 
ful agony. At length one noon, just after Moran had taken the 
sun and had calculated that the “Bertha” was some eight miles to 
the southwest of San Diego, she was surprised to hear Wilbur 
calling her sharply. She ran to him, and found him standing in 
the waist by Charlie’s hammock. 

The Chinaman was dying, and knew it. He was talking in a 
faint and feeble voice to Wilbur as she came up, and was trying to 
explain to him that he was sorry he had deserted the schooner 
during the scare in the bay. 

“Planty muchee solly,” he said; “China boy, him heap flaid of 
Feng-shui. When Feng-shui no likee, we then must go chop-chop. 
Plenty much solly I leave-um schooner that night; solly plenty — 
savvy ?” 

“Of course we savvy, Charlie,” said Moran. “You weren’t 
afraid when it came to fighting.” 

“I die pletty soon,” said Charlie calmly. “You say you gib me 
fifteen hundled dollah?” 

“Yes, yes; that was our promise. What do you want done 
with it, Charlie?” 

“I want plenty fine funeral in Chinatown in San Francisco. 
Oh, heap fine! You buy um first-chop coffin — savvy? Silver heap 
much — costum big money. You gib my money to Hop Sing As- 
sociation, topside Ming Yen temple. You savvy Hop Sing? — one 
Six Companies.” 

“Yes, yes.” 

“Tellum Hop Sing I want funeral — four-piecee horse. You no 
flogettee horse?” he added apprehensively. 

“No, IT 1 not forget the horses, Charlie. You shall have 
four.” 

“Want six-piecee band musicians — China music — heap plenty 
gong. You no flogettee? Two piecee priest, all dressum white — • 
savvy? You mus’ buyum coffin yo’self. Velly fine coffin, heap 
much silver, an’ four-piecee horse. You catchum fireclacker — one, 
five, seven hundled fireclacker, makeum big noise ; an’ loast pig, an’ 


2J2 Moran of the Lady Letty 

plenty lice an’ China blandy. Heap fine funeral, costum fifteen 
hundled dollah. I be bury all same Mandarin — all same Little 
Pete. You plomise, sure?” 

“I promise you, Charlie. You shall have a funeral finer than 
little Pete’s.” 

Charlie nodded his head contentedly, drawing a breath of satis- 
faction. 

“Bimeby Hop Sing sendum body back China.” He closed his 
eyes and lay for a long time, worn out with the efifort of speaking, 
as if asleep. Suddenly he opened his eyes wide. “You no flogettee 
horse ?” 

“Four horses, Charlie. I’ll remember.” 

He drooped once more, only to rouse again at the end of a few 
minutes with : 

“First-chop coffin, plenty much silver” ; and again, a little later 
and very feebly : “Six-piecee — band music — China music — four- 
piecee — gong — four.” 

“I promise you, Charlie,” said Wilbur. 

“Now,” answered Charlie — “now I die.” 

And the low-caste Cantonese coolie, with all the dignity and 
calmness of a Cicero, composed himself for death. 

An hour later Wilbur and Moran knew that he was dead. Yet, 
though they had never left the hammock, they could not have told 
at just what moment he died. 

Later, on that same afternoon, Wilbur, from the crow’s-nest, 
saw the lighthouse on Point Loma and the huge rambling bulk of 
the Coronado Hotel spreading out and along the beach. 

It was the outpost of civilization. They were getting back to 
the world again. Within an hour’s ride of the hotel were San 
Diego, railroads, newspapers, and policemen. Just off the hotel, 
however, Wilbur could discern the gleaming white hull of a United 
States man-of-war. With the glass he could make her out to be 
one of the monitors — the “Monterey” in all probability. 

After advising with Moran, it was decided to put in to land. 
The report as to the castaways could be made to the “Monterey,” 
and Charlie’s body forwarded to his Tong in San Francisco. 

In two hours’ time the schooner was well up, and Wilbur stood 
by Moran’s side at the wheel, watching and studying the familiar 
aspect of Coronado Beach. 

“It’s a great winter resort,” he told her. “I was down here with 
a party two years ago. Nothing has changed. You see that big 


A Change in Leaders 233 

sort of round wing, Moran, all full of windows ? That’s the dining- 
room. And there’s the bathhouse and the bowling-alley. See the 
people on the beach, and the girls in white duck skirts; and look 
up there by the veranda — let me take the glass — yes, there’s a tally- 
ho coach. Isn’t it queer to get back to this sort of thing after 
Magdalena Bay and the beach-combers?” 

Moran spun the wheel without reply, and gave an order to Jim 
to ease off the foresheet. 


2 34 


Moran of the Lady Letty 


XII 

NEW CONDITIONS 

The winter season at the Hotel del Coronado had been unusually 
gay that year, and the young lady who wrote the society news in 
diary form for one of the San Francisco weekly papers had held 
forth at much length upon the hotel’s “unbroken succession of 
festivities.” She had also noted that “prominent among the newest 
arrivals” had been Mr. Nat Ridgeway, of San Francisco, who had 
brought down from the city, aboard his elegant and sumptuously 
fitted yacht “Petrel,” a jolly party, composed largely of the season’s 
debutantes. To be mentioned in the latter category was Miss Josie 
Herrick, whose lavender coming-out tea at the beginning of the 
season was still a subject of comment among the gossips — and all 
the rest of it. 

The “Petrel” had been in the harbor but a few days, and on this 
evening a dance was given at the hotel in honor of her arrival. It 
was to be a cotillon, and Nat Ridgeway was going to lead with 
Josie Herrick. There had been a coaching party to Tia Juana that 
day, and Miss Herrick had returned to the hotel only in time to 
dress. By 9 130 she emerged from the process — which had involved 
her mother, her younger sister, her maid, and one of the hotel 
chambermaids — a dainty, firm-corseted little body, all tulle, white 
satin, and high-piled hair. She carried Marechal Niel roses, or- 
dered by wire from Monterey; and about an hour later, when 
Ridgeway gave the nod to the waiting musicians, and swung her off 
to the beat of a two-step, there was not a more graceful little figure 
upon the floor of the incomparable round ballroom of the Coronado 
Hotel. 

The cotillon was a great success. The ensigns and younger 
officers of the monitor — at that time anchored off the hotel — at- 
tended in uniform ; and enough of the members of what was known 
in San Francisco as the “dancing set” were present to give the 
affair the necessary entrain. Even Jerry Haight, who belonged 
more distinctly to the “country-club set,” and who had spent the 
early part of that winter shooting elk in Oregon, was among the 


New Conditions 


2 35 

ranks of the “rovers,” who grouped themselves about the draughty 
doorways, and endeavored to appear unconscious each time Ridge- 
way gave the signal for a “break.” 

The figures had gone round the hall once. The “first set” was 
out again, and as Ridgeway guided Miss Herrick by the “rovers” 
she looked over the array of shirt-fronts, searching for Jerry 
Haight. 

“Do you see Mr. Haight?” she asked of Ridgeway. “I wanted 
to favor him this break. I owe him two already, and he’ll never for- 
give me if I overlook him now.” 

Jerry Haight had gone to the hotel office for a few moments’ 
rest and a cigarette, and was nowhere in sight. But when the set 
broke, and Miss Herrick, despairing of Jerry, had started out to 
favor one of the younger ensigns, she suddenly jostled against him, 
pushing his way eagerly across the floor in the direction of the 
musicians’ platform. 

“Oh!” she cried, “Mr. Haight, you’ve missed your chance — 
I’ve been looking for you.” 

But Jerry did not hear — he seemed very excited. He crossed 
the floor, almost running, and went up on the platform where the 
musicians were meandering softly through the mazes of “La Pa- 
loma,” and brought them to an abrupt silence. 

“Here, I say, Haight!” exclaimed Ridgeway, who was near by, 
“you can’t break up my figure like that.” 

“Gi’ me a call there on the bugle,” said Haight rapidly to the 
jcornetist. “Anything to make ’em keep quiet a moment.” 

The cornetist sounded a couple of notes, and the cotillon paused 
in the very act of the break. The shuffling of feet grew still, and 
the conversation ceased. A diamond brooch had been found, no 
doubt, or some supper announcement was to be made. But Jerry 
Haight, with a great sweep of his arm, the forgotten cigarette be- 
tween his fingers, shouted out breathlessly: 

“Ross Wilbur is out in the office of the hotel !” 

There was an instant’s silence, and then a great shout. Wilbur 
found! Ross Wilbur come back from the dead! Ross Wilbur, 
hunted for and bootlessly traced from Buenos Ayres in the south 
to the Aleutian Islands in the north. Ross Wilbur, the puzzle of 
every detective bureau on the coast; the subject of a thousand the- 
ories ; whose name had figured in the scareheads of every newspaper 
west of the Mississippi. Ross Wilbur, seen at a fashionable tea and 
his club of an afternoon, then suddenly blotted out from the world 


236 Moran of the Lady Letty 

of men; swallowed up and engulfed by the unknown, with not so 
much as a button left behind. Ross Wilbur the suicide ; Ross Wilbur, 
the murdered; Ross Wilbur, victim of a band of kidnappers, the 
hero of some dreadful story that was never to be told, the mystery, 
the legend — behold he was there ! Back from the unknown, dropped 
from the clouds, spewed up again from the bowels of the earth — 
a veritable god from the machine who in a single instant was to 
disentangle all the unexplained complications of those past winter 
months. 

“Here he comes !” shouted Jerry, his eyes caught by a group of 
men in full dress and gold lace who came tramping down the hall 
to the ballroom, bearing a nondescript figure on their shoulders. 
“Here he comes — the boys are bringing him in here! Oh!” he 
cried, turning to the musicians, “can’t you play something? — any- 
thing! Hit it up for all you’re worth! Ridgeway — Nat, look here! 
Ross was Yale, y know — Yale ’95; ain’t we enough Yale men here 
to give him the yell?” 

Out of all time and tune, but with a vigor that made up for 
both, the musicians banged into a patriotic air. Jerry, standing on 
a chair that itself was standing on the platform, led half a dozen 
frantic men in the long thunder of the “Brek-kek-kek-kek, co-ex, 
co-ex.” 

Around the edges of the hall excited girls, and chaperons them- 
selves no less agitated, were standing up on chairs and benches, 
splitting their gloves and breaking their fans in their enthusiasm ; 
while every male dancer on the floor — ensigns in their gold-faced 
uniforms and “rovers” in starched and immaculate shirt-bosoms — 
cheered and cheered and struggled with one another to shake hands 
with a man whom two of their number — old Yale grads, with mem- 
ories of athletic triumphs yet in their minds — carried into that ball- 
room, borne high upon their shoulders. 

And the hero of the occasion, the centre of all this enthusiasm — 
thus carried as if in triumph into this assembly in evening dress, 
in white tulle and whiter kid, odorous of delicate sachets and scarce- 
perceptible perfumes — was a figure unhandsome and unkempt be- 
yond description. His hair was long, and hanging over his eyes. 
A thick, uncared-for beard concealed the mouth and chin. He was 
dressed in a Chinaman’s blouse and jeans — the latter thrust into 
slashed and tattered boots. The tan and weatherbeatings of nearly 
half a year of the tropics were spread over his face ; a partly healed 
scar disfigured one temple and cheek-bone; the hands, to the very 


New Conditions 237 

finger-nails, were gray with grime; the jeans and blouse and boots 
were fouled with grease, with oil, with pitch, and all manner of the 
dirt of an uncared-for ship. And as the dancers of the cotillon 
pressed about, and a hundred kid-gloved hands stretched toward his 
own palms, there fell from Wilbur’s belt upon the waxed floor of the 
ballroom the knife he had so grimly used in the fight upon the 
beach, the ugly stains still blackening on the haft. 

There was no more cotillon that night. They put him down at 
last ; and in half a dozen sentences Wilbur told them of how he had 
been shanghaied — told them of Magdalena Bay, his fortune in the 
ambergris, and the fight with the beach-combers. 

“You people are going down there for target-practice, aren’t 
you?” he said, turning to one of the “Monterey’s” officers in the 
crowd about him. “Yes? Well, you’ll find the coolies there, on the 
beach, waiting for you. All but one,” he added, grimly. 

“We marooned six of them, but the seventh didn’t need to be 

marooned. They tried to plunder us of our boat, but, by , we 

made it interesting for ’em !” 

“I say, steady, old man !” exclaimed Nat Ridgeway, glancing 
nervously toward the girls in the surrounding group. “This isn’t 
Magdalena Bay, you know.” 

And for the first time Wilbur felt a genuine pang of disappoint- 
ment and regret as he realized that it was not. 

Half an hour later, Ridgeway drew him aside. “I say, Ross, 
let’s get out of here. You can’t stand here talking all night. Jerry 
and you and I will go up to my rooms, and we can talk there in 
peace. I’ll order up three quarts of fizz, and — ” 

“Oh, rot your fizz!” declared Wilbur. “If you love me, give 
me Christian tobacco.” 

As they were going out of the ballroom, Wilbur caught sight 
of Josie Herrick, and, breaking away from the others, ran over 
to her. 

“Oh !” she cried, breathless. “To think and to think of your 
coming back after all ! No, I don’t realize it — I can’t. It will take 
me until morning to find out that you’ve really come back. I just 
know now that I’m happier than I ever was in my life before. Oh !” 
she cried, “do I need to tell you how glad I am? It’s just too 
splendid for words. Do you know, I was thought to be the last 
person you had ever spoken to while alive, and the reporters and 
all — oh, but we must have such a talk when all is quiet again! 
And our dance — we’ve never had our dance. I’ve got your card 


8 Moran of the Lady Letty 

yet. Remember the one you wrote for me at the tea — a facsimile 
of it was published in all the papers. You are going to be a hero 
when you get back to San Francisco. Oh, Ross! Ross!” she cried, 
the tears starting to her eyes, “you’ve really come back, and you 
are just as glad as I am, aren’t you — glad that you’ve come back — 
come back to me?” 

Later on, in Ridgeway’s room, Wilbur told his story again more 
in detail to Ridgeway and Jerry. All but one portion of it. He 
could not make up his mind to speak to them — these society fellows, 
clubmen and city bred — of Moran. How he was going to order 
his life henceforward — his life, that he felt to be void of interest 
without her — he did not know. That was a question for later con- 
sideration. 

“We’ll give another cotillon !” exclaimed Ridgeway, “up in the 
city — give it for you, Ross, and you’ll lead. It’ll be the event of 
the season!” 

Wilbur uttered an exclamation of contempt. “I’ve done with 
that sort of foolery,” he answered. 

“Nonsense ; why, think, we’ll have it in your honor. Every smart 
girl in town will come, and you’ll be the lion of — ” 

“You don’t seem to understand !” cried Wilbur impatiently. “Do 
you think there’s any fun in that for me now? Why, man, I’ve 
fought — fought with a naked dirk, fought with a coolie who snapped 
at me like an ape — and you talk to me of dancing and functions 
and german favors! It wouldn’t do some of you people a bit of 
harm if you were shanghaied yourselves. That sort of life, if it 
don’t do anything else, knocks a big bit of seriousness into you. 
You fellows make me sick,” he went on vehemently. “As though 
there wasn’t anything else to do but lead cotillons and get up new 
figures !” 

“Well, what do you propose to do?” asked Nat Ridgeway. 
“Where are you going now — back to Magdalena Bay?” 

“No.” 

“Where, then?” 

Wilbur smote the table with his fist. 

“Cuba!” he cried. “I’ve got a crack little schooner out in the 
bay here, and I’ve got a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of loot 
aboard of her. I ve tried beach-combing for a while, and now I’ll 
try filibustering. It may be a crazy idea, but it’s better than dan- 
cing. I’d rather lead an expedition than a german, and you can 
chew on that, Nathaniel Ridgeway.” 


New Conditions 239 

Jerry looked at him as he stood there before them in the filthy, 
reeking blouse and jeans, the ragged boots, and the mane of hair 
and tangled beard, and remembered the Wilbur he used to know 
—the Wilbur of the carefully creased trousers, the satin scarfs and 
fancy waistcoats. 

“You’re a different sort than when you went away, Ross,” said 
Jerry. 

“Right you are,” answered Wilbur. 

“But I will venture a prophecy,” continued Jerry, looking keenly 
at him. 

“Ross, you are a born-and-bred city man. It’s in the blood 
of you and the bones of you. I’ll give you three years for this 
new notion of yours to wear itself out You think just now 
you’re going to spend the rest of your life as an amateur buccaneer. 
In three years, at the outside, you’ll be using your ‘loot,’ as you call 
it, or the interest of it, to pay your taxes and your tailor, your pew 
rent and your club dues, and you’ll be what the biographers call ‘a 
respectable member of the community.’ ” 

“Did you ever kill a man, Jerry?” asked Wilbur. “No? Well, 
you kill one some day — kill him in a fair give-and-take fight — and 
see how it makes you feel, and what influence it has on you, and 
then come back and talk to me.” 

It was long after midnight. Wilbur rose. 

“We’ll ring for a boy,” said Ridgeway, “and get you a room. 
I can fix you out with clothes enough in the morning ” 

Wilbur stared in some surprise, and then said : 

“Why, I’ve got the schooner to look after. I can’t leave those 
coolies alone all night.” 

“You don’t mean to say you’re going on board at this time in the 
morning?” 

“Of course!” 

“Why — but — but you’ll catch your death of cold.” 

Wilbur stared at Ridgeway, then nodded helplessly, and, scratch- 
ing his head, said, half aloud : 

“No, what’s the use; I can’t make ’em understand. Good-night 
I’ll see you in the morning.” 

“We’ll all come out and visit you on your yacht,” Ridgeway 
called after him ; but Wilbur did not hear. 

In answer to Wilbur’s whistle, Jim came in with the dory and 
took him off to the schooner. Moran met him as he came over the 
side. 


240 


Moran of the Lady Letty 

“I took the watch myself to-night and let the boy turn in,” 
she said. “How is it ashore, mate?” 

“We’ve come back to the world of little things, Moran,” said 
Wilbur. “But we’ll pull out of here in the morning and get back 
to the places where things are real.” 

“And that’s a good hearing, mate.” 

“Let’s get up here on the quarterdeck,” added Wilbur. “I’ve 
something to propose to you.” 

Moran laid an arm across his shoulder, and the two walked aft 
For half an hour Wilbur talked to her earnestly about his new idea 
of filibustering; and as he told her of the war he warmed to the 
subject, his face glowing, his eyes sparkling. Suddenly, however, 
he broke off 

“But no !” he exclaimed. “You don’t understand, Moran. How 
can you — you’re foreign-born. It’s no affair of yours!” 

“Mate! mate!” cried Moran, her hands upon his shoulders. “It’s 
you who don’t understand — don’t understand me. Don’t you know 
— can’t you see? Your people are mine now. I’m happy only in 
your happiness. You were right — the best happiness is the hap- 
piness one shares. And your sorrows belong to me, just as I be- 
long to you, dear. Your enemies are mine, and your quarrels are 
my quarrels.” She drew his head quickly toward her and kissed 
him. 

In the morning the two had made up their minds to a certain 
vague course of action. To get away — anywhere — was their one 
aim. Moran was by nature a creature unfit for civilization, and 
the love of adventure and the desire for action had suddenly leaped 
to life in Wilbur’s blood and was not to be resisted. They would 
get up to San Francisco, dispose of their “loot,” outfit the 
“Bertha Millner” as a filibuster, and put to sea again. They had 
discussed the advisability of rounding the Horn in so small 
a ship as the “Bertha Millner,” but Moran had settled that 
at once. 

“I’ve got to know her pretty well,” she told Wilbur. “She’s 
sound as a nut. Only let’s get away from this place.” 

But toward ten o’clock on the morning after their arrival off 
Coronado, and just as they were preparing to, get under way, Hoang 
touched Wilbur’s elbow. 

“Seeum lil one-piece smoke-boat; him come chop-chop.” 

In fact, a little steam-launch was rapidly approaching the 
schooner. In another instant she was alongside. Jerry, Nat Ridge- 


New Conditions 


241 

way/ Josie Herrick, and an elderly woman, whom Wilbur barely 
knew as Miss Herrick's married sister, were aboard. 

“We’ve come off to see your yacht!” cried Miss Herrick to Wil- 
bur as the launch bumped along the schooner’s counter. “Can we 
come aboard ?” She looked very pretty in her crisp pink shirt-waist, 
her white duck skirt, and white kid shoes, her sailor hat tilted at 
a barely perceptible angle. The men were in white flannels and 
smart yachting suits. “Can we come aboard ?” she repeated. 

Wilbur gasped and stared. “Good Lord!” he muttered. “Oh, 
come along,” he added, desperately. 

The party came over the side. 

“Oh, my !” said Miss Herrick blankly, stopping short. 

The decks, masts, and rails of the schooner were shiny with a 
black coating of dirt and grease; the sails were gray with grime; 
a strangling odor of oil and tar, of cooking and of opium, of Chi- 
nese punk and drying fish, pervaded all the air. In the waist, Hoang 
and Jim, bare to the belt, their queues looped around their necks 
to be out of the way, were stowing the dory and exchanging high- 
pitched monosyllables. Miss Herrick’s sister had not come aboard. 
The three visitors — Jerry, Ridgeway, and Josie — stood nervously 
huddled together, their elbows close in, as if to avoid contact with 
the prevailing filth, their immaculate white outing-clothes detach- 
ing themselves violently against the squalor and sordid grime of the 
schooner’s background. 

“Oh, my!” repeated Miss Herrick in dismay, half closing her 
eyes. “To think of what you must have been through ! I thought 
you had some kind of a yacht. I had no idea it would be like this.” 
And as she spoke, Moran came suddenly upon the group from be- 
hind the foresail, and paused in abrupt surprise, her thumbs in 
her belt. 

She still wore men’s clothes and was booted to the knee. The 
heavy blue woolen shirt was open at the throat, the sleeves rolled 
half-way up her large white arms. In her belt she carried her haft- 
less Scandinavian dirk. She was hatless as ever, and her heavy, 
fragrant cables of rye-hued hair fell over her shoulders and breast 
to far below her belt. 

Miss Herrick started sharply, and Moran turned an inquir- 
ing glance upon Wilbur. Wilbur took his resolution in both 
hands. 

“Miss Herrick,” he said, “this is Moran— Moran Sternersen.” 

Moran took a step forward- holding out her hand. Josie, all 

K— IV — Norris 


*242 Moran of the Lady Letty 

bewildered, put her tight- gloved fingers into the calloused palm, 
looking up nervously into Moran’s face. 

“I’m sure,” she said feebly, almost breathlessly, “I — I’m sure 
I’m very pleased to meet Miss Sternersen.” 

It was long before the picture left Wilbur’s imagination. Josie 
Herrick, petite, gowned in white, crisp from her maid’s grooming; 
and Moran, sea-rover and daughter of a hundred Vikings, tower- 
ing above her, booted and belted, gravely clasping Josie’s hand in 
her own huge fist. 


Moran Sternersen 


243 


XIII 

MORAN STERNERSEN 

San Francisco once more! For two days the “Bertha Mill- 
ner” had been beating up the coast, fighting her way against north- 
erly winds, butting into head seas. 

The warmth, the stillness, the placid, drowsing quiet of Mag- 
dalena Bay, steaming under the golden eye of a tropic heaven, the 
white, baked beach, the bay-heads, striated with the mirage in 
the morning, the coruscating sunset, the enchanted mystery of the 
purple night, with its sheen of stars and riding moon, were now 
replaced by the hale and vigorous snorting of the Trades, the roll 
of breakers to landward, and the unremitting gallop of the unnum- 
bered multitudes of gray-green seas, careering silently past the 
schooner, their crests occasionally hissing into brusque eruptions of 
white froth, or smiting broad on under her counter, showering her 
decks with a sprout of icy spray. It was cold; at times thick fogs 
cloaked all the world of water. To the east a procession of bleak 
hills defiled slowly southward; lighthouses were passed; streamers 
of smoke on the western horizon marked the passage of steamships ; 
and once they met and passed close by a huge Cape Horner, a great 
deep-sea tramp, all sails set and drawing, rolling slowly and leisurely 
in seas that made the schooner dance. 

At last the Farallones looked over the ocean’s edge to the north ; 
then came the whistling-buoy, the Seal Rocks, the Heads, Point 
Reyes, the Golden Gate flanked with the old red Presidio, Lime 
Point with its watching cannon ; and by noon of a gray and boister- 
ous day, under a lusty wind and a slant of rain, just five months 
after her departure, the “Bertha Millner” let go her anchor in San 
Francisco Bay some few hundred yards off the Lifeboat Station. 

In this berth the schooner was still three or four miles from the 
city and the water-front. But Moran detested any nearer approach 
to civilization, and Wilbur himself was willing to avoid, at least for 
one day, the publicity which he believed the “Bertha’s” reappear- 
ance was sure to attract. He remembered, too, that the little boat 


244 Moran of the Lady Letty 

carried with her a fortune of $100,000, and decided that until it 
could be safely landed and stored it was not desirable that its ex- 
istence should be known along “the Front.” 

For days, weeks even, Wilbur had looked eagerly forward to 
this return to his home. He had seen himself again in his former 
haunts, in his club, and in the houses along Pacific avenue where 
he was received ; but no sooner had the anchor-chain ceased rattling 
in the “Bertha’s” hawse-pipe than a strange revulsion came upon 
him. The new man that seemed to have so suddenly sprung to life 
within him, the Wilbur who was the mate of the “Bertha Millner,” 
the Wilbur who belonged to Moran, believed that he could see 
nothing to be desired in city life. For him was the unsteady deck 
of a schooner, and the great winds and the tremendous wheel of 
the ocean’s rim, and the horizon that ever fled before his following 
prow; so he told himself, so he believed. What attractions could 
the city offer him? What amusements? what excitements? He 
had been flung off the smoothly spinning circumference of well- 
ordered life out into the void. 

He had known romance, and the spell of the great, simple, and 
primitive emotions ; he had sat down to eat with buccaneers ; he 
had seen the fierce, quick leap of unleashed passions, and had felt 
death swoop close at his nape and pass like a swift spurt of cold 
air. City life, his old life, had no charm for him now. Wilbur 
honestly believed that he was changed to his heart’s core. He 
thought that, like Moran, he was henceforth to be a sailor of the 
sea, a rover, and he saw the rest of his existence passed with her, 
aboard their faithful little schooner. They would have the whole 
round world as their playground; they held the earth and the 
great seas in fief; there was no one to let or to hinder. They two 
belonged to each other. Once outside the Heads again, and they 
swept the land of cities and of little things behind them, and they 
two were left alone once more ; alone in the great world of romance. 

About an hour after her arrival off the station, while Hoang 
and the hands were furling the jib and foresail and getting the dory 
over the side, Moran remarked to Wilbur: 

It s good we came in when we did, mate ; the glass is going 
down fast, and the wind’s breezing up from the west ; we’re going 
to have a blow; the tide will be going out in a little while, and 
we never could have come in against wind and tide.” 

“Moran,” said Wilbur, “I’m going ashore — into the station here; 
there’s a telephone line there; see the wires? I can’t so much as 


Moran Sternersen 


2 45 

turn my hand over before I have some shore-going clothes. What 
do you suppose they would do to me if I appeared on Kearney 
Street in this outfit? I’ll ring up Langley & Michaels — they are the 
wholesale chemists in town — and have their agent come out here 
and talk business to us about our ambergris. We’ve got to pay the 
men their prize-money; then as soon as we get our own money in 
hand we can talk about overhauling and outfitting the ‘Bertha.’ ” 

Moran refused to accompany him ashore and into the Lifeboat 
Station. Roofed houses were an object of suspicion to her. Already 
she had begun to be uneasy at the distant sight of the city of San 
Francisco, Nob, Telegraph, Russian, and Rincon hills, all swarm- 
ing with buildings and grooved with streets; even the land-locked 
harbor fretted her. Wilbur could see she felt imprisoned, confined. 
When he had pointed out the Palace Hotel to her — a vast gray 
cube in the distance, overtopping the surrounding roofs — she had 
sworn under her breath. 

“And people can live there, good heavens! Why not rabbit- 
burrows, and be done with it? Mate, how soon can we be out to 
sea again? I hate this place.” 

Wilbur found the captain of the Lifeboat Station in the act of 
sitting down to a dinner of boiled beef and cabbage. He was a 
strongly built well-looking man, with the air more of a soldier 
than a sailor. He had already been studying the schooner through 
his front window and had recognized her, and at once asked Wilbur 
news of Captain Kitchell. Wilbur told him as much of his story 
as was necessary, but from the captain’s talk he gathered that the 
news of his return had long since been wired from Coronado, and 
that it would be impossible to avoid a nine days’ notoriety. The 
captain of the station (his name was Hodgson) made Wilbur roy- 
ally welcome, insisted upon his dining with him, and himself called 
up Langley & Michaels as soon as the meal was over. 

It was he who offered the only plausible solution of the mystery 
of the lifting and shaking of the schooner and the wrecking of the 
junk. Though Wilbur was not satisfied with Hodgson’s explana- 
tion, it was the only one he ever heard. 

When he had spoken of the matter, Hodgson had nodded his 
head. “Sulphur-bottoms,” he said. 

“Sulphur-bottoms ?” 

“Yes; they’re a kind of right-whale; they get barnacles and a 
kind of marine lice on their backs, and come up and scratch them* 
selves against a ship’s keel, just like a hog under a fence.” 


246 Moran of the Lady Letty 

When Wilbur’s business was done, and he was making ready to 
return to the schooner, Hodgson remarked suddenly : “Hear you’ve 
got a strapping fine girl aboard with you. Where did you fall in 
with her?” and he winked and grinned. 

Wilbur started as though struck, and took himself hurriedly 
away; but the man’s words had touched off in his brain a veritable 
mine of conjecture. Moran in Magdalena Bay was consistent, 
congruous, and fitted into her environment. But how — how was 
Wilbur to explain her to San Francisco, and how could his be- 
havior seem else than ridiculous to the men of his club and to the 
women whose dinner invitations he was wont to receive? They 
could not understand the change that had been wrought in him; 
they did not know Moran, the savage, half-tamed Valkyrie so sud- 
denly. become a woman. Hurry as he would, the schooner could 
not be put to sea again within a fortnight. Even though he elected 
to live aboard in the meanwhile, the very business of her prepara- 
tion would call him to the city again and again. Moran could 
not be kept a secret. As *t was, all the world knew of her by 
now. On the other hand, he could easily understand her position; 
to her it seemed simplicity itself that they two who loved each 
other should sail away and pass their lives together upon the sea, 
as she and her father had done before. 

Like most men, Wilbur had to walk when he was thinking hard. 
He sent the dory back to the schooner with word to Moran that he 
would take a walk around the beach and return in an hour or two. 
He set off along the shore in the direction of Fort Mason, the old 
red-brick fort at the entrance to the Golden Gate. At this point 
in the Presidio Government reservation the land is solitary. Wilbur 
followed the line of the beach to the old fort ; and there, on the very 
threshold of the Western world, at the very outpost of civilization, 
sat down in the lee of the crumbling fortification, and scene by 
scene reviewed the extraordinary events of the past six months. 

In front of him ran the narrow channel of the Golden Gate; to 
his right was the bay and the city ; at his left the open Pacific. 

He saw himself the day of his advent aboard the “Bertha” in 
his top hat and frock coat; saw himself later “braking down” at 
the windlass, the “Petrel” within hailing distance. 

Then the pictures began to thicken fast : the derelict bark “Lady 
Letty” rolling to her scuppers, abandoned and lonely; the “boy” 
in the wheel-box ; Kitchell wrenching open the desk in the captain’s 
stateroom; Captain Sternersen buried at sea, his false teeth upside 


Moran Sternersen 


247 

down ; the black fury of the squall, and Moran at the wheel ; Moran 
lying at full length on the deck, getting the altitude of a star; 
Magdalena Bay; the shark-fishing; the mysterious lifting and shud- 
dering of the schooner; the beach-combers’ junk, with its staring 
red eyes; Hoang, naked to the waist, gleaming with sweat and 
whale-oil; the ambergris; the race to beach the sinking schooner; 
the never-to-be-forgotten night when he and Moran had camped 
together on the beach ; Hoang taken prisoner, and the hideous filing 
of his teeth ; the beach-combers, silent and watchful behind their 
sand breastworks; the Chinaman he had killed twitching and hic- 
coughing at his feet; Moran turned Berserker, bursting down upon 
him through a haze of smoke ; Charlie dying in the hammock aboard 
the schooner, ordering his funeral with its “four-piecee horse” ; 
Coronado; the incongruous scene in the ballroom; and, last of all, 
Josie Herrick in white duck and kid shoes, giving her hand to 
Moran in her boots and belt, hatless as ever, her sleeves rolled up to 
above the elbows, her white, strong arm extended, her ruddy face, 
and pale, milk-blue eyes gravely observant, her heavy braids, yellow 
as ripening rye, hanging over her shoulder and breast. 

A sudden explosion of cold wind, striking down blanket-wise 
and bewildering from out the west, made Wilbur look up quickly. 
The gray sky seemed scudding along close overhead. The bay, the 
narrow channel of the Golden Gate, the outside ocean, were all 
whitening with crests of waves. At his feet the huge green ground- 
swells thundered to the attack of the fort’s granite foundations. 
Through the Gate, the bay seemed rushing out to the Pacific. A 
bewildered gull shot by, tacking and slanting against the gusts that 
would drive it out to sea. Evidently the storm was not far off. 
Wilbur rose to his feet, and saw the “Bertha Millner,” close in, 
unbridled and free as a runaway horse, headed directly for the open 
sea, and rushing on with all the impetus of wind and tide ! 


248 


Moran of the Lady Letty 


XIV 

THE OCEAN IS CALLING FOR YOU 

A little while after Wilbur had set off for the station, while 
Moran was making the last entries in the log-book, seated at the 
table in the cabin, Jim appeared at the door. 

“Well,” she said, looking up. 

“China boy him want go asho’ plenty big, seeum flen up China- 
town in um city.” 

“Shore leave, is it?” said Moran. “You deserted once before 
without even saying good-by ; and my hand in the fire, you’ll come 
back this time dotty with opium. Get away with you. We’ll have 
men aboard here in a few days.” 

“Can go?” inquired Jim suavely. 

“I said so. Report our arrival to your Six Companies.” 

Hoang rowed Jim and the coolies ashore, and then returned to 
the schooner with the dory and streamed her astern. As he passed 
the cabin door on his way forward, Moran hailed him. 

“I thought you went ashore?” she cried. 

“Heap flaid,” he answered. “Him other boy go up Chinatown ; 
him tell Sam Yup; I tink Sam Yup alia same killee me. I no 
leaveum ship two, thlee day; bimeby I go Olegon. I stay topside 
ship. You wantum cook. I cook plenty fine; standum watch for 
you.” 

Indeed, ever since leaving Coronado the ex-beach-comber had 
made himself very useful about the schooner; had been, in fact, 
obsequiousness itself, and seemed to be particularly desirous of gain- 
ing the good-will of the “Bertha’s” officers. He understood pigeon 
English better than Jim, and spoke it even better than Charlie had 
done. He acted the part of interpreter between Wilbur and the 
hands ; even turned to in the galley upon occasion ; and of his own 
accord offered to give the vessel a coat of paint above the water-line, 
Moran turned back to her log, and Hoang went forward. Standing 
on the forward deck, he looked after the “Bertha’s” coolies until 
they disappeared behind a row of pine-trees on the Presidio Reserva- 


The Ocean is Calling for You 249 

tion, going cityward. Wilbur was nowhere in sight. For a long 
time Hoang studied the Lifeboat Station narrowly, while he made 
a great show of coiling a length of rope. The station was just out 
of hailing distance. Nobody seemed stirring. The whole shore and 
back land thereabout was deserted; the edge of the city was four 
miles distant. Hoang returned to the forecastle-hatch and went 
below, groping under his bunk in his ditty-box. 

“Well, what is it?” exclaimed Moran a moment later, as the 
beach-comber entered the cabin and shut the door behind him. 

Hoang did not answer; but she did not need to repeat the 
question. In an instant Moran knew very well what he had come 
for. 

“God!” she exclaimed under her breath, springing to her feet. 
“Why didn’t we think of this!” 

Hoang slipped his knife from the sleeve of his blouse. For an 
instant the old imperiousness, the old savage pride and anger, 
leaped again in Morans breast — then died away forever. She was 
no longer the same Moran of that first fight- on board the schooner, 
when the beach-combers had plundered her of her “loot.” Only 
a few weeks ago, and she would have fought with Hoang with- 
out hesitation and without mercy ; would have wrenched a leg from 
the table and brained him where he stood. But she had learned 
since to know what it meant to be dependent; to rely for pro- 
tection upon some one who was stronger than she; to know her 
weakness; to know that she was at last a woman, and to be proud 
of it. 

She did not fight; she had no thought of fighting. Instinc- 
tively she cried aloud, “Mate — mate! — Oh, mate, where are you? 
Help me!” and Hoang’s knife nailed the words within her throat. 

The “loot” was in a brass-bound chest under one of the cabin’s 
bunks, stowed in two gunny-bags. Hoang drew them out, knotted 
the two together, and, slinging them over his shoulder, regained 
the deck. 

He looked carefully at the angry sky and swelling seas, noting 
the direction of the wind and set of the tide; then went forward 
and cast the anchor-chains from the windlass in such a manner 
that the schooner must inevitably wrench free with the first heavy 
strain. The dory was still tugging at the line astern. Hoang 
dropped the sacks in the boat, swung himself over the side, and 
rowed calmly toward the station’s wharf. If any notion of putting 
to sea with the schooner had entered the obscure, perverted cun- 


250 Moran of the Lady Letty 

ning of his mind, he had almost instantly rejected it. Chinatown 
was his aim ; once there and under the protection of his Tong, Hoang 
knew that he was safe. He knew the hiding-places that the See 
Yup Association provided for its members — hiding places whose 
very existence was unknown to the police of the White Devil. 

No one interrupted — no one even noticed — his passage to the 
station. At best, it was nothing more than a coolie carrying a couple 
of gunny-sacks across his shoulder. Two hours later, Hoang was 
lost in San Francisco’s Chinatown. 

At the sight of the schooner sweeping out to sea, Wilbur was for 
an instant smitten rigid. What had happened ? Where was Moran ? 
Why was there nobody on board? A swift, sharp sense of some 
unnamed calamity leaped suddenly at his throat. Then he was 
aware of a clattering of hoofs along the road that led to the fort. 
Hodgson threw himself from one of the horses that were used 
in handling the surf-boat, and ran to him hatless and panting. 

“My God!” he shouted. “Look, your schooner, do you see her? 
She broke away after I’d started to tell you — to tell you — to tell 
you — your girl there on board — It was horrible!” 

“Is she all right?” cried Wilbur, at top voice, for the clamor 
of the gale was increasing every second. 

“All right! No; they’ve killed her — somebody — the coolies, I 
think — knifed her ! I went out to ask you people to come into the 
station to have supper with me — ” 

“Killed her — killed her! Who? I don’t believe you — ” 

“Wait — to have supper with me, and I found her there on the 
cabin floor. She was still breathing. I carried her up on deck — 
there was nobody else aboard. I carried her up and laid her on 
the deck — and she died there. Just now I came after you to tell 
you, and — ” 

“Good God Almighty, man! who killed her? Where is she? 
Oh — but of course it isn’t true! How did you know? Moran 
killed ! Moran killed !” 

“And the schooner broke away after I started !” 

“Moran killed! But — but — she’s not dead yet; we’ll have to 
see — ” 

“She died on the deck ; I brought her up and laid her on — ” 

“How do you know she’s dead ? Where is she ? Come on, we’ll 
go right back to her — to the station l” 

“She’s on board — out there!” 


The Ocean is Calling for You 251 

‘‘Where — where is she? My God, man, tell me where she is!” 

“Out there aboard the schooner. I brought her up on deck I 

left her on the schooner— on the deck— she was stabbed in the 
throat and then came after you to tell you. Then the schooner 
broke away while I was coming; she’s drifting out to sea now!” 

“Where is she? Where is she?” 

“Who — the girl — the schooner — which one? The girl is on the 
schooner — and the schooner — that’s her, right there — she’s drifting 
out to sea !” 

Wilbur put both hands to his temples, closing his eyes. 

“I’ll go back!” exclaimed Hodgson. “We’ll have the surf-boat 
out and get after her ; we’ll bring the body back !” 

“No, no !” cried Wilbur, “it’s better — this way. Leave her, let 
her go — she’s going out to sea again!” 

“But the schooner won’t live two hours outside in this weather ; 
she’ll go down !” 

“It’s better — that way — let her go. I want it so!” 

“I can’t stay !” cried the other again. “If the patrol should sig- 
storm coming up, and I’ve got to be at my station.” 

Wilbur did not answer; he was watching the schooner. 

“I can’t stay !” cried the other again. “If the patrol should sig- 
nal — I can’t stop here, I must be on duty. Come back, you can’t do 
anything !” 

“No!” 

“I have got to go!” Hodgson ran back, swung himself on the 
horse, and rode away at a furious gallop, inclining his head against 
the gusts. 

And the schooner in a world of flying spray, white scud, and 
driving spoondrift, her cordage humming, her forefoot churning, 
the flag at her peak straining stiff in the gale, came up into the 
narrow passage of the Golden Gate, riding high upon the outgoing 
tide. On she came, swinging from crest to crest of the waves that 
kept her company and that ran to meet the ocean, shouting and call- 
ing out beyond there under the low, scudding clouds. 

Wilbur had climbed to> the top of the old fort. Erect upon its 
granite ledge he stood, and watched and waited. 

Not once did the “Bertha Millner” falter in her race. Like an 
unbitted horse, all restraint shaken off, she ran free toward the 
ocean as to her pasture-land. She came nearer, nearer, rising and 
rolling with the seas, her bowsprit held due west, pointing like a 
finger out to sea, to the west — out to the world of romance. And 


252 Moran of the Lady Letty 

then at last, as the little vessel drew opposite the old fort and passed 
not one hundred yards away, Wilbur, watching from the rampart, 
saw Moran lying upon the deck with outstretched arms and calm, 
upturned face; lying upon the deck of that lonely fleeing schooner 
as upon a bed of honor, still and calm, her great braids smooth 
upon her breast, her arms wide; alone with the sea; alone in death 
as she had been in life. She passed out of his life as she had come 
into it — alone, upon a derelict ship, abandoned to the sea. She went 
out with the tide, out with the storms ; out, out, out to the great gray 
Pacific that knew her and loved her, and that shouted and called for 
her, and thundered in the joy of her as she came to meet him like a 
bride to meet a bridegroom. 

“Good-by, Moran!” shouted Wilbur as she passed. “Good-by, 
good-by, Moran ! You were not for me — not for me ! The ocean 
is calling for you, dear ;. don’t you hear him ? Don’t you hear him ? 
Good-by, good-by, good-by!” 

The schooner swept by, shot like an arrow through the swirling 
currents of the Golden Gate, and dipped and bowed and courtesied 
to the Pacific that reached toward her his myriad curling fingers. 
They infolded her, held her close, and drew her swiftly, swiftly out 
to the great heaving bosom, tumultuous and beating in its mighty 
joy, its savage exultation of possession. 

Wilbur stood watching. The little schooner lessened in the dis- 
tance — became a shadow in mist and flying spray — a shadow moving 
upon the face of the great waste of water. Fainter and fainter she 
grew, vanished, reappeared, was heaved up again — a mere speck 
upon the western sky — a speck that dwindled and dwindled, then 
slowly melted away into the gray of the horizon. 


THE END 


ESSAYS ON 
AUTHORSHIP 


FRANK NORRIS 




Copyright, 1902, by 
The Critic Publishing Company 
Copyright, 1901, 1902, 1903, by 
Doubleday, Page & Company 
Published, September, 1903 


ESSAYS ON AUTHORSHIP 


THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE NOVELIST 

It is not here a question of the “unarrived,” the “unpublished” ; 
these are the care-free irresponsibilities whose hours are halycon and 
whose endeavors have all the lure, all the recklessness of adventure. 
They are not recognized; they have made no standards for them- 
selves, and if they play the saltimbanque and the charlatan nobody 
cares and nobody (except themselves) is affected. 

But the writers in question are the successful ones who have 
made a public and to whom some ten, twenty or a hundred thou- 
sand people are pleased to listen. You may believe if you choose 
that the novelist, of all workers, is independent — that he can write 
what he pleases, and that certainly, certainly he should never “write 
down to his readers” — that he should never consult them at all. 

On the contrary, I believe it can be proved that the successful 
novelist should be more than all others limited in the nature and 
character of his work, more than all others he should be careful of 
what he says ; more than all others he should defer to his audience ; 
more than all others — more even than the minister and the editor — 
he should feel “his public” and watch his every word, testing care- 
fully his every utterance, weighing with the most relentless 
precision his every statement; in a word, possess a sense of his 
responsibilities. 

For the novel is the great expression of modern life. Each 
form of art has had its turn at reflecting and expressing its con- 
temporaneous thought. Time was when the world looked to the 
architects of the castles and great cathedrals to truly reflect and 
embody its ideals. And the architects — serious, earnest men — 
produced such “expressions of contemporaneous thought” as the 
Castle of Coucy and the Church of Notre Dame. Then with other 
times came other customs, and the painters had their day. The 
men of the Renaissance trusted Angelo and Da Vinci and Velas- 

(255) 


256 Essays on Authorship 

quez to speak for them, and trusted not in vain. Next came the 
age of drama. Shakespeare and Marlowe found the value of x 
for the life and the times in which they lived. Later on contem- 
porary life had been so modified that neither painting, architecture 
nor drama was the best vehicle of expression, the day of the longer 
poems arrived, and Pope and Dryden spoke for their fellows. 

Thus the sequence. Each age speaks with its own peculiar 
organ, and has left the Word for us moderns to read and under- 
stand. The Castle of Coucy and the Church of Notre Dame are 
the spoken words of the Middle Ages. The Renaissance speaks — 
and intelligibly — to us through the sibyls of the Sistine chapel and 
the Mona Lisa. “Macbeth” and “Tamerlane” resume the whole 
spirit of the Elizabethan age, while the “Rape of the Lock” is a 
wireless message to us straight from the period of the Restoration. 

To-day is the day of the novel. In no other day and by no other 
vehicle is contemporaneous life so adequately expressed; and the 
critics of the twenty-second century, reviewing our times, striving 
to reconstruct our civilization, will look not to the painters, not to 
the architects nor dramatists, but to the novelists to find our idio- 
syncrasy. 

I think this is true. I think if the matter could in any way be 
statisticized, the figures would bear out the assumption. There is 
no doubt the novel will in time “go out” of popular favor as irrev- 
ocably as the long poem has gone and for the reason that it is no 
longer the right mode of expression. 

It is interesting to speculate upon what will take its place. Cer- 
tainly the coming civilization will revert to no former means of 
expressing its thought or its ideals. Possibly music will be the 
interpreter of the life of the twenty-first and twenty-second centu- 
ries. Possibly one may see a hint of this in the characterization of 
Wagner’s operas as the “Music of the Future.” 

This, however, is parenthetical and beside the mark. Remains 
the fact that to-day is the day of the novel. By this one does not 
mean that the novel is merely popular. If the novel was not some- 
thing more than a simple diversion, a means of whiling away a 
dull evening, a long railway journey, it would not, believe me, 
remain in favor another day. 

If the novel, then, is popular, it is popular with a reason, a vital, 
inherent reason ; that is to say, it is essential. Essential — to resume 
once more the proposition — because it expresses modern life better 
than architecture, better than painting, better than poetry, better than 


The Responsibilities of the Novelist 257 

music. It is as necessary to the civilization of the twentieth century 
as the violin is necessary to Kubelik, as the piano is necessary to 
Paderewski, as the plane is necessary to the carpenter, the sledge to 
the blacksmith, the chisel to the mason. It is an instrument, a tool, 
a weapon, a vehicle. It is that thing which, in the hand of man, 
makes him civilized and no longer savage, because it gives him a 
power of durable, permanent expression. So much for the novel — 
the instrument. 

Because it is so all-powerful to-day, the people turn to him who 
wields this instrument with every degree of confidence. They 
expect — and rightly — that results shall be commensurate with 
means. The unknown archer who grasps the bow of Ulysses may 
be expected by the multitude to send his shaft far and true. If he 
is not true nor strong he has no business with the bow. The people 
give heed to him only because he bears a great weapon. He him- 
self knows before he shoots whether or no he is worthy. ^ 

It is all very well to jeer at the People and at the People’s mis- 
understanding of the arts, but the fact is indisputable that no art 
that is not in the end understood by the People can live or ever did 
live a single generation. In the larger view, in the last analysis, 
the People pronounce the final judgment. The People, despised of 
the artist, hooted, caricatured and vilified, are, after all, and in the 
main, the real seekers after Truth. Who is it, after all, whose 
interest is liveliest in any given work of art? It is not now a ques- 
tion of esthetic, interest — that is, the artist’s, the amateur’s, the 
cognoscente's. It is a question of vital interest. Say what you will, 
Maggie Tulliver — for instance — is far more a living being for Mrs. 
Jones across the street than she is for your sensitive, fastidious, 
keenly critical artist, litterateur, or critic. The People — Mrs. Jones 
and her neighbors — take the life history of these fictitious charac- 
ters, these novels, to heart with a seriousness that the esthetic cult 
have no conception of. The cult consider them almost solely from 
their artistic sides. The People take them into their innermost 
lives. Nor do the People discriminate. Omnivorous readers as 
they are to-day, they make little distinction between Maggie Tulli- 
ver and the heroine of the last “popular novel.” They do not stop 
to separate true from false ; they do not care. 

How necessary it becomes, then, for those who, by the simple 
art of writing, can invade the heart’s heart of thousands, whose 
novels are received with such measureless earnestness — how neces- 
sary it becomes for those who wield such powers to use it rightfully. 


25 8 Essays on Authorship 

Is it not expedient to act fairly? Is it not in Heaven’s name essen- 
tial that the People hear, not a lie, but the Truth? 

If the novel were not one of the most important factors of mod- 
ern life ; if it were not the completest expression of our civilization ; 
if its influence were not greater than all the pulpits, than all the 
newspapers between the oceans, it would not be so important that 
its message should be true. 

But the novelist to-day is the one who reaches the greatest 
audience. Right or wrong, the People turn to him the moment he 
speaks, and what he says they believe. 

For the Million, Life is a contracted affair, is bounded by the 
walls of the narrow channel of affairs in which their feet are set. 
They have no horizon. They look to-day as they never have looked 
before, as they never will look again, to the writer of fiction to give 
them an idea of life beyond their limits, and they believe him as 
they never have believed before and never will again. 

This being so, is it not difficult to understand how certain of 
these successful writers of fiction — these favored ones into whose 
hands the gods have placed the great bow of Ulysses — can look so 
frivolously upon their craft? It is not necessary to specify. One 
speaks of those whose public is measured by “one hundred and fifty 
thousand copies sold.” We know them, and because the gods have 
blessed us with wits beyond our deserving we know their work is 
false. But what of the “hundred and fifty thousand” who are not 
discerning and who receive this falseness as Truth, who believe this 
topsy-turvy picture of Life beyond their horizons is real and vital 
and sane? 

There is no gauge to measure the extent of this malignant influ- 
ence. Public opinion is made no one can say how, by infinitesimal 
accretions, by a multitude of minutest elements. Lying novels, 
surely, surely in this day and age of indiscriminate reading, con- 
tribute to this more than all other influences of present-day activity. 

^ The Pulpit, the Press and the Novel — these indisputably are the 
great molders of public opinion and public morals to-day. But 
the Pulpit speaks but once a week ; the Press is read with lightning 
haste and the morning news is waste-paper by noon. But the novel 
goes into the home to stay. It is read word for word; is talked 
about, discussed ; its influence penetrates every chink and corner of 
the family. 

Yet novelists are not found wanting who write for money. I do 
not think this is an unfounded accusation. I do not think it is ask- 


The Responsibilities of the Novelist 259 

ing too much of credulity. This would not matter if they wrote 
the Truth. But these gentlemen who are “in literature for their own 
pocket every time” have discovered that for the moment the People 
have confounded the Wrong with the Right, and prefer that which 
is a lie to that which is true. “Very well, then,” say these gentle- 
men. “If they want a lie they shall have it”; and they give the 
People a lie in return for royalties. 

The surprising thing about this is that you and I and all the 
rest of us do not consider this as disreputable — do not yet realize that 
the novelist has responsibilities. We condemn an editor who sells 
his editorial columns, and we revile the pulpit attainted of venality. 
But the venal novelist — he whose influence is greater than either the 
Press or Pulpit — him we greet with a wink and the tongue in the 
cheek. 

This should not be so. Somewhere the protest should be raised, 
and those of us who see the practice of this fraud should bring 
home to ourselves the realization that the selling of one hundred 
and fifty thousand books is a serious business. The People have a 
right to the Truth as they have a right to life, liberty and the 
pursuit of happiness. It is not right that they be exploited and 
deceived with false views of life, false characters, false sentiment, 
false morality, false history, false philosophy, false emotions, false 
heroism, false notions of self-sacrifice, false views of religion, of 
duty, of conduct and of manners. 

The man who can address an audience of one hundred and 
fifty thousand people who — unenlightened — believe what he says, 
has a heavy duty to perform, and tremendous responsibilities to 
shoulder; and he should address himself to his task not with the 
flippancy of a catch-penny juggler at the county fair, but with 
earnestness, with soberness, with a sense of his limitations, and 
with all the abiding sincerity that by the favor and mercy of the 
gods may be his. 


THE TRUE REWARD OF THE NOVELIST 


Not that one quarrels with the historical novel as such; not 
that one does not enjoy good fiction wherever found, and in what- 
ever class. It is the method of attack of the latter-day copyists that 
one deplores — their attitude, the willingness of so very, very many 
of them to take off the hat to Fashion, and then hold the same hat 
for Fashion to drop pennies in. 

Ah, but the man must be above the work or the work is worth- 
less, and the man better off at some other work than that of pro- 
ducing fiction. The eye never once should wander to the gallery, 
but be always with single purpose turned inward upon the work, 
testing it and retesting it that it rings true. 

What one quarrels with is the perversion of a profession, the 
detestable trading upon another man’s success. No one can find 
fault with those few good historical novels that started the fad. 
There was good workmanship in these, and honesty. But the copy- 
ists, the fakirs — they are not novelists at all, though they write 
novels that sell by the hundreds of thousands. They are business 
men. They find out — no, they allow some one else to find out — 
what the public wants, and they give it to the public cheap, and 
advertise it as a new soap is advertised. Well, they make money; 
and if that is their aim — if they are content to prostitute the good 
name of American literature for a sliding scale of royalties — let’s 
have done with them. They have their reward. But the lamentable 
result will be that these copyists will in the end so prejudice the 
people against an admirable school of fiction — the school of Scott 
— that for years to come the tale of historic times will be discred- 
ited and many a great story remain unwritten, and many a man of 
actual worth and real power held back in the ranks for very shame 
of treading where so many fools have rushed in. 

For the one idea of the fakir — the copyist — and of the public 
which for the moment listens to him, is Clothes, Clothes, Clothes, 
first, last, and always Clothes. Not Clothes only in the sense of 
doublet and gown, but Clothes of speech, Clothes of manner, Clothes 

(260) 


The True Reward of the Novelist 


161 


of customs. Hear them expatiate over the fashion of wearing a cuff, 
over a trick of speech, over the architecture of a house, the archae- 
ology of armor and the like. It is all well enough in its way, but 
so easily dispensed with if there be flesh and blood underneath. 
Veronese put the people of his “Marriage at Cana” into the 
clothes of his contemporaries. Is the picture any less a master- 
piece ? 

Do these Little People know that Scott’s archaeology was about 
one thousand years “out” in Ivanhoe, and that to make a parallel 
we must conceive of a writer describing Richelieu — say — in small 
clothes and a top hat? But is it not Richelieu we want, and Ivan- 
hoe , not their clothes, their armor ? And in spite of his errors Scott 
gave us a real Ivanhoe. He got beneath the clothes of an epoch 
and got the heart of it, and the spirit of it (different essentially 
and vitally from ours or from every other, the spirit of feudalism) ; 
and he put forth a masterpiece. 

The Little People so very precise in the matter of buttons and 
“bacinets” do not so. Take the clothes from the people of their Ro- 
mances and one finds dnly wooden manikins. Take the clothes 
from the epoch of which they pretend to treat and what is there 
beneath? It is only the familiar, well-worn, well-thumbed nine- 
teenth or twentieth century after all. As well have written of Michi- 
gan Avenue, Chicago, as “La Rue de la Harpe,” “The Great North 
Road” or the “Appian Way.” 

It is a masquerade, the novel of the copyists; and the people 
who applaud them — are they not the same who would hold persons 
in respect because of the finery of their bodies? A poor taste, a 
cheap one; the taste of serving-men, the literature of chamber- 
maids. “• 

To approach the same subject by a different radius: why must 
the historical novel of the copyist always be conceived of in the 
terms of Romance? Could not the formula of Realism be applied 
at least as well, not the Realism of mere externals (the copyists 
have that), but the Realism of motives and emotions? What would 
we not give for a picture of the fifteenth century as precise and 
perfect as one of Mr. James’s novels? Even if that be impossible, 
the attempt, even though half-way successful, would be worth while, 
would be better than the wooden manikin in the tin-pot helmet and 
baggy hose. At least we should get somewhere, even if no further 
than Mr. Kingsley took us in “Hereward,” or Mr. Blackmore in 
“Lorna Doone.” 


262 Essays on Authorship 

How about the business life and the student life, and the artisan 
life and the professional life, and above all, the home life of 
historic periods? Great Heavens! There was something else 
sometimes than the soldier life. There were not always cut- 
ting and thrusting, not always night-riding, escaping, venturing, 
posing. 

Or suppose that cut-and-thrust must be the order of the day, 
where is the “man behind,” and the heart in the man and the spirit 
in the heart and the essential vital, elemental, all-important true 
life within the spirit? We are all Anglo-Saxons enough to enjoy the 
sight of a fight, would go a block or so out of the way to see one, 
or be a dollar or so out of pocket. But let it not be these jointed 
manikins worked with a thread. At least let it be Mr. Robert Fitz- 
simmons or Mr. James Jeffries. 

Clothes, paraphernalia, panoply, pomp and circumstance, and the 
copyist’s public and the poor bedeviled, ink-corroded hack of an 
overdriven, underpaid reviewer on an inland paper speak of the 
“vivid coloring” and “the fine picture of a bygone age” — it is easy 
to be vivid with a pot of vermilion at the elbow. Any one can 
scare a young dog with a false face and a roaring voice, but to 
be vivid and use grays and browns, to scare the puppy with the 
lifted finger, that’s something to the point. 

The difficult thing is to get at the life immediately around you 
— the very life in which you move. No romance in it? No ro- 
mance in you , poor fool. As much romance on Michigan Avenue 
as there is realism in King Arthur’s court. It is as you choose to 
see it. The important thing to decide is, which formula is the best 
to help you grip the Real Life of this or any other age. Contem- 
poraries always imagine that theirs is the prosaic age, and that 
chivalry and the picturesque died with their forebears. No doubt 
Merlin mourned for the old time of romance. Cervantes held that 
romance was dead. Yet most of the historical romances of the day 
are laid in Cervantes’s time, or even after it. 

Romance and Realism are constant qualities of every age, day 
and hour. They are here to-day. They existed in the time of Job. 
They will continue to exist till the end of time, not so much in 
things as in point of view of the people who see things. 

The difficulty, then, is to get at the immediate life — immensely 
difficult, for you are not only close to the canvas, but are yourself 
part of the picture. 

But the historic age is almost done to hand. Let almost any 


The True Reward of the Novelist 263 

one shut himself in his closet with a history and Violet LeDuc’s 
“Dictionaire du Mobilier,” and, given a few months’ time, he can 
evolve a historical novel of the kind called popular. He need not 
know men— just clothes and lingo, the “what-ho-without-there” 
gabble. But if he only chose he could find romance and adventure 
in Wall Street or Bond Street. But romance there does not wear 
the gay clothes and the showy accoutrements, and to discover it — 
the real romance of it — means hard work and close study, not o O 
books, but of people and actualities. 

Not only this, but to know the life around you, you must live — 
if not among people, then in people. You must be something more 
than a novelist if you can, something more than just a writer. 
There must be that nameless sixth sense or sensibility in you that 
great musicians have in common with great inventors and great 
scientists; the thing that does not enter into the work, but that is 
back of it ; the thing that would make of you a good man as well as 
a good novelist ; the thing that differentiates the mere business man 
from the financier (for it is possessed of the financier and poet alike 
— so only they be big enough). 

It is not genius, for genius is a lax, loose term, so flippantly 
used that its expressiveness is long since lost. It is more akin to 
sincerity. And there once more we halt upon the great word — 
sincerity, sincerity, and again sincerity. Let the writer attack his 
Historical novel with sincerity and he can not then do wrong. He 
will see then the man beneath the clothes, and the heart beneath 
both, and he will be so amazed at the wonder of that sight that he 
will forget the clothes. His public will be small, perhaps, but he 
will have the better reward of the knowledge of a thing well done. 
Royalties on editions of hundreds of thousands will not pay him 
more to his satisfaction than that. To make money is not the 
province of a novelist. If he is the right sort, he has other respon- 
sibilities, heavy ones. He of all men can not think only of himself 
or for himself. And when the last page is written and the ink 
crusts on the pen-point and the hungry presses go clashing after 
another writer, the “new man” and the new fashion of the hour, he 
will think of the grim long grind of the years of his life that he has 
put behind him and of his work that he has built up volume by vol- 
ume, sincere work, telling the truth as he saw it, independent of 
fashion and the gallery gods, holding to these with gripped hands 
and shut teeth — he will think of all this then, and he will be able 
to say : “I never truckled ; I never took off the hat to Fashion and 


264 Essays on Authorship 

held it out for pennies. By God, I told them the truth. They liked 
it or they didn’t like it. What had that to do with me ? I told them 
the truth ; I knew it for the truth then, and I know it for the truth 
now.” 

And that is his reward — the best that a man may know ; the only 
one really worth the striving for. 


THE NOVEL WITH A “PURPOSE” 


After years of indoctrination and expostulation on the part of 
the artists, the people who read appear at last to have grasped this 
one precept — “the novel must not preach,” but “the purpose of the 
story must be subordinate to the story itself.” It took a very long 
time for them to understand this, but once it became apparent they 
fastened upon it with a tenacity comparable only to the tenacity of 
the American schoolboy to the date “1492.” “The novel must not 
preach,” you hear them say. 

As though it were possible to write a novel without a purpose, 
even if it is only the purpose to amuse. One is willing to admit 
that this savors a little of quibbling, for “purpose” and purpose to 
amuse are two different purposes. But every novel, even the most 
frivolous, must have some reason for the writing of it, and in that 
sense must have a “purpose.” 



Every novel must do one of three things — it must ( 1 ) tell some- 
thing, (2) show something, or (3) prove something. Some novels 
do all three of these ; some do only two ; all must do at least one. 

The ordinary novel merely tells something, elaborates a compli- 
cation, devotes itself primarily to things. In this class comes the 
novel of adventure, such as “The Three Musketeers.” 

The second and better class of novel shows something, exposes 
the workings of a temperament, devotes itself primarily to the minds 
of human beings. In this class falls the novel of character, such 
as “Romola.” 

The third, and what we hold to be the best class, proves some- 
thing, draws conclusions from a whole congeries of forces, social 
tendencies, race impulses, devotes itself not to a study of men but 
of man. In this class falls the novel with the purpose, such as 
“Les Miserables.” 

And the reason we decide upon this last as the highest form of 
the novel is because that, though setting a great purpose before it 
as its task, it nevertheless includes, and is forced to include, both 


L — IV — Norris (265) 


266 


Essays on Authorship 

the other classes. It must tell something, must narrate vigorous 
incidents and must show something, must penetrate deep into the mo- 
tives and character of typemen, men who are composite pictures of 
a multitude of men. It must do this because of the nature of its 
subject, for it deals with elemental forces, motives that stir whole 
nations. These can not be handled as abstractions in fiction. Fic- 
tion can find expression only in the concrete. The elemental forces, 
then, contribute to the novel with a purpose to provide it with vig- 
orous action. In the novel, force can be expressed in no other way. 
The social tendencies must be expressed by means of analysis of 
the characters of the men and women who compose that society, 
and the two must be combined and manipulated to evolve the pur- 
pose — to find the value of x. 

The production of such a novel is probably the most arduous 
task that the writer of fiction can undertake. Nowhere else is 
success more difficult; nowhere else is failure so easy. Unskilfully 
treated, the story may dwindle down and degenerate into mere 
special pleading, and the novelist become a polemicist, a pamphleteer, 
forgetting that, although his first consideration is to prove his case, 
his means must be living human beings, not statistics, and that his 
tools are not figures, but pictures from life as he sees it. The novel 
with a purpose is, one contends, a preaching novel. But it preaches 
by tellings things and showing things. Only, the author selects from 
the great storehouse of actual life the things to be told and the 
things to be shown which shall bear upon his problem, his purpose. 
The preaching, the moralizing, is the result not of direct appeal by 
the writer, but is made — should be made — to the reader by the very 
incidents of the story. 

But here is presented a strange anomaly, a distinction as subtle 
as it is vital. Just now one has said that in the composition of the 
kind of novel under consideration the purpose is for the novelist 
the all-important thing, and yet it is impossible to deny that the story, 
as a mere story, is to the story-writer the one great object of atten- 
tion. How reconcile then these two apparent contradictions? 

For the novelist, the purpose of his novel, the problem he is to 
solve, is to his story what the keynote is to the sonata. Though the 
musician can not exaggerate the importance of the keynote, yet the 
thing that interests him is the sonata itself. The keynote simply 
co-ordinates the music, systematizes it, brings all the myriad little 
rebellious notes under a single harmonious code. 

Thus, too, the purpose in the novel. It is important as an end 


The Novel With a “Purpose” 267 

and also as an ever-present guide. For the writer it is important 
only as a note to which his work must be attuned. The moment, 
however, that the writer becomes really and vitally interested in his 
purpose his novel fails. 

Here is the strange anomaly. Let us suppose that Hardy, say, 
should be engaged upon a story which had for purpose to show the 
injustices under which the miners of Wales were suffering. It is 
conceivable that he could write a story that would make the blood 
boil with indignation. But he himself, if he is to remain an artist, 
if he is to write his novel successfully, will, as a novelist, care very 
little about the iniquitous labor system of the Welsh coal-mines. It 
will be to him as impersonal a thing as the key is to the composer of 
a sonata. As a man Hardy may or may not be vitally concerned in 
the Welsh coal-miner. That is quite unessential. But as a novelist, 
as an artist, his sufferings must be for him a matter of the mildest 
interest. They are important, for they constitute his keynote. They 
are not interesting for the reason that the working out of his story , 
its people, episodes, scenes, and pictures is for the moment the most 
interesting thing in all the world to him, exclusive of everything else. 
Do you think that Mrs. Stowe was more interested in the slave 
question than she was in the writing of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” ? Her 
book, her manuscript, the page-to-page progress of the narrative, 
were more absorbing to her than all the Negroes that were ever 
whipped or sold. Had it not been so that great purpose-novel never 
would have succeeded. 

Consider the reverse — “Fecondite,” for instance. The purpose 
for which Zola wrote the book ran away with him. He really did 
care more for the depopulation of France than he did for his 
novel. Result — sermons on the fruitfulness of women, special 
pleading, a farrago of dry, dull incidents overburdened and col- 
lapsing under the weight of a theme that should have intruded 
only indirectly. 

This is pre-eminently a selfish view of the question, but it is 
assuredly the only correct one. It must be remembered that the 
artist has a double personality : himself as a man, and himself as an 
artist. But, it will be urged, how account for the artist’s sympathy 
in his fictitious characters, his emotion, the actual tears he sheds 
in telling of their griefs, their deaths, and the like? 

The answer is obvious. As an artist his sensitiveness is quick- 
ened because they are characters in his novel. It does not at all fol- 
low that the same artist would be moved to tears over the report of 


268 


Essays on Authorship 

parallel catastrophes in real life. As an artist, there is every reason 
to suppose he would welcome the news with downright pleasure. It 
would be for him “good material. ,, He would see a story in it, a 
good scene, a great character. Thus the artist. What he would do, 
how he would feel as a man is quite a different matter. 

To conclude, let us consider one objection urged against the 
novel with a purpose by the plain people who read. For certain 
reasons, difficult to explain, the purpose novel always ends unhap- 
pily. It is usually a record of suffering, a relation of tragedy. And 
the plain people say, “Ah, we see so much suffering in the world, 
why put it into novels? We do not want it in novels.” 

One confesses to very little patience with this sort. “We see 
so much suffering in the world already.” Do they? Is this really 
true? The people who buy novels are the well-to-do people. They 
belong to a class whose whole scheme of life is concerned solely 
with an aim to avoid the unpleasant. Suffering, the great catas- 
trophes, the social throes, that annihilate whole communities, or that 
crush even isolated individuals — all these are as far removed from 
them as earthquakes and tidal-waves. Or, even if it were so, sup- 
pose that by some miracle these blind eyes were opened and the suf- 
ferings of the poor, the tragedies of the house around the comer, 
really were laid bare. If there is much pain in life, all the more rea- 
son that it should appear in a class of literature which, in its high- 
est form, is a sincere transcription of life. 

It is the complaint of the coward, this cry against the novel 
with a purpose, because it brings the tragedies and griefs of others 
to notice. Take this element from fiction, take from it the power 
and opportunity to prove that injustice, crime, and inequality do 
exist, and what is left? Just the amusing novels, the novels that 
entertain. The juggler in spangles, with his balancing pole and gilt 
ball, does this. You may consider the modern novel from this point 
of view. It may be a flippant paper-covered thing of swords and 
cloaks, to be carried on a railway journey and to be thrown out the 
window when read, together with the sucked oranges and peanut 
shells. Or it may be a great force, that works together with the 
pulpit and the universities for the good of the people, fearlessly 
proving that power is abused, that the strong grind the faces of the 
weak, that an evil tree is still growing in the midst of the garden, 
that undoing follows hard upon unrighteousness, that the course of 
Empire is not yet finished, and that the races of men have yet to 
work out their destiny in those great and terrible movements that 


The Novel With a “Purpose” 269 

crush and grind and rend asunder the pillars of the houses of the 
nations. 

Fiction may keep pace with the Great March, but it will not be by 
dint of amusing the people. The Muse is a teacher, not a trickster. 
Her rightful place is with the leaders, but in the last analysis that 
place is to be attained and maintained not by cap-and-bells, but be- 
cause of a serious and sincere interest, such as inspires the great 
teachers, the great divines, the great philosophers, a well-defined, 
well-seen, courageously sought-for purpose. 


STORY-TELLERS VS. NOVELISTS 


It is a thing accepted and indisputable that a story-teller is a 
novelist, but it has often occurred to one that the reverse is not 
always true and that the novelist is not of necessity a story-teller. 
The distinction is perhaps a delicate one, but for all that it seems to 
be decisive, and it is quite possible that with the distinction in mind 
a different judgment might be passed upon a very large part of 
present-day fiction. It would even be entertaining to apply the 
classification to the products of the standard authors. 

The story-telling instinct seems to be a gift, whereas— we trend 
to the heretical — the art of composing novels — using the word in 
apposition to stories, long or short — may be an acquirement. The 
one is an endowment, the other an accomplishment. Accordingly, 
throughout the following paragraphs the expression, novelists of 
composition, for the time being will be used technically, and will 
be applied to those fiction-writers who have not the story-telling 
faculty. 

It would not be fair to attempt a proof that the one is better or 
worse than the other. The difference is surely of kind and not of 
degree. One will only seek to establish the fact that certain emi- 
nent and brilliant novel-writers are quite bereft of a sense of fiction, 
that some of them have succeeded in spite of this deficiency, and 
that other novel-writers possessing this sense of fiction have suc- 
ceeded because of it, and in spite of many drawbacks, such as lack 
of training and of education. 

It is a proposition which one believes to be capable of demon- 
stration that every child contains in himself the elements of every 
known profession, every occupation, every art, every industry. In 
the five-year-old you may see glimpses of the soldier, trader, farmer, 
painter, musician, builder, and so on to the end of the roster. Later, 
circumstances produce the atrophy of all these instincts but one, 
and from that one specialized comes the career. Thus every 
healthy-minded child — no matter if he develops in later years to be 
financier or boot-maker — is a story-teller. As soon as he begins to 

(270) 


Story-Tellers vs. Novelists 271 

talk he tells stories. Witness the holocausts and carnage of the 
leaden platoons of the nursery table, the cataclysms of the Grand 
Trans-Continental Playroom and Front-Hall Railroad system. 
This, though, is not real story-telling. The toys practically tell the 
story for him and are no stimulant to the imagination. However, 
the child goes beyond the toys. He dramatizes every object of his 
surroundings. The books of the library shelves are files of soldiers, 
the rugs are isles in the seaway of the floor, the easy chair is a 
comfortable old gentleman holding out his arms, the sofa a private 
brig or a Baldwin locomotive, and the child creates of his sur- 
roundings an entire and complex work of fiction of which he is 
at one and the same time hero, author and public. 

Within the heart of every mature human being, not a writer of 
fiction, there is the withered remains of a little story-teller who died 
very young. And the love of good fiction and the appreciation of a 
fine novel in the man of the world of riper years is — I like to think 
— a sort of memorial tribute which he pays to his little dead playmate 
of so very long ago, who died very quietly with his little broken tin 
locomotive in his hands on the cruel day when he woke to the 
realization that it had outlived its usefulness and its charm. 

Even in the heart of some accepted and successful fiction-writer 
you shall find this little dead story-teller. These are the novelists 
of composition, whose sense of fiction, under stress of circum- 
stances, has become so blunted that when they come at last to full 
maturity and to the power of using the faculty they can no longer 
command it. These are novelists rather of intellect than of spon- 
taneous improvisation ; and all the force of their splendid minds, 
every faculty other than the lost fiction faculty, must be brought 
into play to compensate for the lack. Some more than compensate 
for it, so prodigal in resource, so persistent in effort, so powerful 
in energy and in fertility of invention, that — as it were by main 
strength — they triumph over the other writer, the natural story- 
teller, from whose pen the book flows with almost no effort at all. 

Of this sort — the novelists of intellect, in whom the born story- 
teller is extinct, the novelists of composition in a word — the great 
example, it would seem, is George Eliot. It was by taking thought 
that the author of “Romola” added to her stature. The result is 
superb, but achieved at what infinite pains, with what colossal 
labor — of head rather than of the heart! She did not feel , she 
knew , and to attain that knowledge what effort had to be expended ! 
Even all her art can not exclude from her pages evidences of the 


272 Essays on Authorship 

labor, of the superhuman toil. And it was labor and toil for what? 
To get back, through years of sophistication, of solemn education, 
of worldly wisdom, back again to the point of view of the little lost 
child of the doll-house days. 

But sometimes the little story-teller does not die, but lives on 
and grows with the man, increasing in favor with God, till at last 
he dominates the man himself, and the playroom of the old days 
simply widens its walls till it includes the street outside, and the 
street beyond and other streets, the whole city, the whole world, 
and the story-teller discovers a set of new toys to play with, and 
new objects of a measureless environment to dramatize about, and in 
exactly, exactly the same spirit in which he trundled his tin train 
through the halls and shouted boarding orders from the sofa he 
moves now through the world’s playroom, “making up stories”; 
only now his heroes and his public are outside himself and he alone 
may play the author. 

For him there is but little effort required. He has a sense of 
fiction. Every instant of his day he is dramatizing. The cable-car 
has for him a distinct personality. Every window in the residence 
quarters is an eye to the soul of the house behind. The very lamp- 
post on the corner, burning on through the night and through the 
storm, is a soldier, dutiful, vigilant in stress. A ship is Adventure ; 
an engine a living brute; arid the easy chair of his library is still 
the same comfortable and kindly old gentleman holding out his 
arms. 

The men and women of his world are not apt to be — to him — 
so important in themselves as in relation to the whirl of things in 
which he chooses to involve them. They cause events, or else 
events happen to them, and by an unreasoned instinct the story- 
teller preserves the consistencies (just as the child would not have 
run the lines of the hall railway across the seaway of the floor be- 
tween the rugs). Much thought is not necessary to him. Pro- 
duction is facile, a constant pleasure. The story runs from his pen 
almost of itself ; it takes this shape or that, he knows not why ; his 
people do this or that and by some blessed system of guesswork 
they are somehow always plausible and true to life. His work is 
haphazard, yet in the end and in the main tremendously probable. 
Devil-may-care, slipshod, melodramatic, but invincibly persuasive, 
he uses his heart, his senses, his emotions, every faculty but that of 
the intellect. He does not know ; he feels. 

Dumas was this, and “The Three Musketeers,” different from 


Story-Tellers vs. Novelists 273 

“Romola” in kind but not in degree, is just as superb as Eliot at 
her best. Only the Frenchman had a sense of fiction which the 
Englishwoman had not. Her novels are character studies, are por- 
traits, are portrayals of emotions or pictures of certain times and 
certain events, are everything you choose, but they are not stories, 
and no stretch of the imagination, no liberalness of criticism can 
make them such. She succeeded by dint of effort where the 
Frenchman — merely wrote. 

George Eliot compensated for the defect artificially and suc- 
ceeded eminently and conclusively, but there are not found wanting 
cases — in modern literature — where “novelists of composition” 
have not compensated beyond a very justifiable doubt, and where, 
had they but rejoiced in a very small modicum of this dowry of the 
gods, their work would have been — to one’s notion — infinitely im- 
proved. 

As, for instance, Tolstoi; incontestably great though he be, all 
his unquestioned power has never yet won for him that same vivid 
sense of fiction enjoyed by so (comparatively) unimportant a writer 
as the author of “Sherlock Holmes.” And of the two, judged 
strictly upon their merits as story-tellers , one claims for Mr. Doyle 
the securer if not the higher place, despite the magnificent genius 
of the novelist. 

In the austere Russian — gloomy, sad, acquainted with grief — 
the child died irrevocably long, long ago; and no power however 
vast, no wisdom however profound, no effort however earnest, can 
turn one wheel on the little locomotive of battered tin or send it 
one inch along the old right-of-way between the nursery and the 
front room. One can not but feel that the great author of “Anna 
Karenina” realizes as much as his readers the limitations that the 
loss of this untainted childishness imposes. The power was all his, 
the wonderful intellectual grip, but not the fiction spirit — the child’s 
knack and love of “making up stories.” Given that , plus the force 
already his own, and what a book would have been there! The 
perfect novel ! No doubt, clearer than all others, the great Russian 
sees the partial failure of his work, and no doubt keener and deeper 
than all others sees that, unless the child-vision and the child- 
pleasure be present to guide and to stimulate, the entrances of the 
kingdom must stay forever shut to those who would enter, storm 
they the gates never so mightily and beat they never so clamorously 
at the doors. 

Whatever the end of fiction may be, whatever the reward and 


274 Essays on Authorship 

recompense bestowed, whatever object is gained by good work, the 
end will not be gained, nor the reward won, nor the object attained 
by force alone — by strength of will or of mind. Without the 
auxiliary of the little playmate of the old days the great doors that 
stand at the end of the road will stay forever shut. Look once, 
however, with the child’s eyes, or for once touch the mighty valves 
with the child’s hand, and Heaven itself lies open with all its mani- 
fold wonders. 

So that in the end, after all trial has been made and every 
expedient tested, the simplest way is the best and the humblest 
means the surest. A little child stands in the midst of the wise 
men and the learned, and their wisdom and their learning are set 
aside and they are taught that unless they become as one of these 
they shall in nowise enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. 


THE NEED OF A LITERARY CONSCIENCE 


Pilate saith unto them: “What is truth?” and it is of record 
that he received no answer — and for very obvious reasons. For is 
it not a fact, that he who asks that question must himself find the 
answer, and that not even one sent from Heaven can be of hope or 
help to him if he is not willing to go down into his own heart and 
into his own life to find it? 

To sermonize, to elaborate a disquisition on nice distinctions of 
metaphysics is not appropriate here. But it is — so one believes — 
appropriate to consider a certain very large class of present-day nov- 
elists of the United States who seldom are stirred by that spirit of 
inquiry that for a moment disturbed the Roman, who do not ask what 
is truth, who do not in fact care to be truthful at all, and who — and 
this is the serious side of the business — are bringing the name of 
American literature perilously near to disrepute. 

One does not quarrel for one instant with the fact that certain 
books of the writers in question have attained phenomenally large 
circulations. This is as it should be. There are very many people 
in the United States, and compared with such a figure as seventy 
million, a mere hundred thousand of books sold is no great matter. 

But here — so it seems — is the point. He who can address a hun- 
dred thousand people is, no matter what his message may be, in an 
important position. It is a large audience, one hundred thousand, 
larger than any roofed building now standing could contain. Less 
than one-hundredth part of that number nominated Lincoln. Less 
than half of it won Waterloo. 

And it must be remembered that for every one person who buys 
a book there are three who will read it and half a dozen who will 
read what some one else has written about it, so that the sphere of 
influence widens indefinitely, and the audience that the writer ad- 
dresses approaches the half-million mark. 

Well, and good; but if the audience is so vast, if the influence 
is so far-reaching, if the example set is so contagious, it becomes 
incumbent to ask, it becomes imperative to demand that the half- 
million shall be told the truth and not a lie. 


1275 ) 


276 Essays on Authorship 

And this thing called truth — “what is it?” says Pilate, and the 
average man conceives at once of an abstraction, a vague idea, a 
term borrowed from the metaphysicians, certainly nothing that has 
to do with practical, tangible, concrete work-a-day life. 

Error! If truth is not an actual work-a-day thing, as concrete 
as the lamp-post on the corner, as practical as a cable-car, as 
real and homely and work-a-day and commonplace as a bootjack, 
then indeed are we of all men most miserable and our preaching 
vain. 

And truth in fiction is just as real and just as important as truth 
anywhere else — as in Wall Street, for instance. A man who does 
not tell the truth there, and who puts the untruth upon paper over 
his signature, will be very promptly jailed. In the case of the Wall 
Street man the sum of money in question may be trivial — $100, $50. 
But the untruthful novelist who starts in motion something like 
half a million dollars invokes not fear nor yet reproach. If truth 
in the matter of the producing of novels is not an elusive, intangible 
abstraction, what, then, is it? Let us get at the hard nub of the 
business, something we can hold in the hand. It is the thing that is 
one's own, the discovery of a subject suitable for fictitious narra- 
tion that has never yet been treated, and the conscientious study of 
that subject and the fair presentation of results. Not a difficult 
matter, it would appear, not an abstraction, not a philosophical kink. 
Newspaper reporters, who are not metaphysicians, unnamed, unre- 
warded, despised, even, and hooted and hounded, are doing this 
every day. They do it on a meagre salary, and they call the afifair 
a “scoop.” Is the standard of the novelist — he who is intrusted 
with the good name of his nation’s literature — lower than that of a 
reporter ? 

“Ah, but it is so hard to be original,” “ah, but it is so hard to 
discover anything new.” Great Heavens! when a new life comes 
into the world for every tick of the watch in your pocket — a new 
life with all its complications, and with all the thousand and one 
other complications it sets in motion ! 

Hard to be original ! when of all of those billion lives your own 
is as distinct, as individual, as “original," as though you were born 
out of season in the Paleozoic age and yours the first human face 
the sun ever shone upon. 

Go out into the street and stand where the ways cross and hear 
the machinery of life work clashing in its grooves. Can the utmost 
resort of your ingenuity evolve a better story than any one of the 


The Need of a Literary Conscience 277 

millions that jog your elbow? Shut yourself in your closet and 
turn your eyes inward upon yourself — deep into yourself, down, 
down into the heart of you; and the tread of the feet upon 
the pavement is the systole and diastole of your own being — dif- 
ferent only in degree. It is life; and it is that which you must 
have to make your book, your novel — life, not other people’s 
novels. 

Or look from your window. A whole Literature goes marching 
by, clamoring for a leader and a master hand to guide it. You 
have but to step from your doorway. And instead of this, instead 
of entering into the leadership that is yours by right divine, instead 
of this, you must toilfully, painfully endeavor to crawl into the 
armor of the chief of some other cause, the harness of the leader of 
some other progress. 

But you will not fit into the panoply. You may never brace that 
buckler upon your arm, for by your very act you stand revealed 
as a littler man than he who should be chief — a littler man and a 
weaker; and the casque will fall so far over your face that it will 
only blind .you, and the sword will trip you, and the lance, too 
ponderous, will falter in your grip, and all that life which surges 
and thunders behind you will in time know you to be the false 
leader, and as you stumble will trample you in its onrush, and 
leave you dead and forgotten upon the road. 

And just as a misconception of the truth makes of this the 
simplest and homeliest of things, a vagary, an abstraction and a 
bugbear, so it is possible that a misconception of the Leader creates 
the picture of a great and dreadful figure wrapped in majesty, sol- 
emn and profound. So that perhaps for very lack of self-confidence, 
for very diffidence, one shrinks from lifting the sword of him and 
from enduing one’s forehead with the casque that seems so pon- 
derous. 

In other causes no doubt the leader must be chosen from the 
wise and great. In science and finance one looks to him to be a 
strong man, a swift and a sure man. But the literature that to-day 
shouts all in vain for its chief needs no such a one as this. Here 
the battle is not to the strong nor yet the race to the swift. Here the 
leader is no vast, stern being, profound, solemn, knowing all things, 
but, on the contrary, is as humble as the lowliest that follow after 
him. So that it need not be hard to step into that place of emi- 
nence. Not by arrogance, nor by assumption, nor by the achieve- 
ment of the world’s wisdom, shall you be made worthy of the place 


278 Essays on Authorship 

of high command. But it will come to you, if it comes at all, 
because you shall have kept yourself young and humble and pure 
in heart, and so unspoiled and unwearied and un jaded that you 
shall find a joy in the mere rising of the sun, a wholesome, sane 
delight in the sound of the wind at night, a pleasure in the sight of 
the hills at evening, shall see God in a little child and a whole 
religion in a brooding bird. 


A NEGLECTED EPIC 


Suddenly we have found that there is no longer any Frontier. 
The westward-moving course of empire has at last crossed the Pa- 
cific Ocean. Civilization has circled the globe and has come back 
to its starting point, the vague and mysterious East. 

The thing has not been accomplished peacefully. From the very 
first it has been an affair of wars — of invasions. Invasions of the 
East by the West, and of raids North and South — raids accom- 
plished by flying columns that dashed out from both sides of the 
main army. Sometimes even the invaders have fought among 
themselves, as, for instance, the Trojan War, or the civil wars of 
Italy, England, and America; sometimes they have turned back on 
their tracks and, upon one pretext or another, reconquered the races 
behind them, as, for instance, Alexander’s wars to the eastward, 
the Crusades, and Napoleon’s Egyptian campaigns. 

Retarded by all these obstacles, the march has been painfully 
slow. To move from Egypt to Greece took centuries of time. More 
centuries were consumed in the campaign that brought empire from 
Greece to Rome, and still more centuries passed before it crossed 
the Alps and invaded northern and western Europe. 

But observe. Once across the Mississippi, the West — our Far 
West — was conquered in about forty years. In all the vast cam- 
paign from east to west here is the most signal victory, the swift- 
est, the completest, the most brilliant achievement — the wilderness 
subdued at a single stroke. 

Now all these various fightings to the westward, these mysteri- 
ous race-movements, migrations, wars and wanderings have pro- 
duced their literature, distinctive, peculiar, excellent. And this lit- 
erature we call epic. The Trojan War gave us the “Iliad,” the 
“Odyssey,” and the “iEneid”; the campaign of the Greeks in Asia 
Minor produced the “Anabasis”; a whole cycle of literature grew 
from the conquest of Europe after the fall of Rome — “The Song 
of Roland,” “The Nibelungenlied,” “The Romance of the Rose,” 
“Beowulf,” “Magnusson,” “The Scotch Border Ballads,” “The 

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280 


Essays on Authorship 

Poem of the Cid,” “The Heimskringla,” “Orlando Furioso,” “Jeru- 
salem Delivered,” and the like. 

On this side of the Atlantic, in his clumsy, artificial way, but 
yet recognized as a producer of literature, Cooper has tried to 
chronicle the conquest of the eastern part of our country. Absurd 
he may be in his ideas of life and character, the art in him veneered 
over with charlatanism ; yet the man was solemn enough and took 
his work seriously, and his work is literature. 

Also a cycle of romance has grown up around the Civil War. 
The theme has had its poets to whom the public have been glad to 
listen. The subject is vast, noble; is, in a word, epic, just as the 
Trojan War and the Retreat of the Ten Thousand were epic. 

But when at last one comes to look for the literature that sprang 
from and has grown up around the last great epic event in the 
history of civilization, the event which in spite of stupendous diffi- 
culties was consummated more swiftly, more completely, more 
satisfactorily than any like event since the westward migration 
began — I mean the conquering of the West, the subduing of the 
wilderness beyond the Mississippi — what has this produced in the 
way of literature ? The dime novel ! The dime novel and nothing 
else. The dime novel and nothing better. 

The Trojan War left to posterity the character of Hector; the 
wars with the Saracens gave us Roland; the folklore of Iceland 
produced Grettir ; the Scotch border poetry brought forth the Doug- 
las ; the Spanish epic the Cid. But the American epic, just as heroic, 
just as elemental, just as important and as picturesque, will fade 
into history, leaving behind no finer tvpe, no nobler hero than Buffalo 
Bill. 

The young Greeks sat on marble terraces overlooking the Aegean 
Sea and listened to the thunderous roll of Homer’s hexameter. In 
the feudal castles the minstrel sang to the young boys of Roland. 
The farm folk of Iceland to this very day treasure up and read to 
their little ones hand-written copies of the Gretla Saga chronicling 
the deeds and death of Grettir the Strong. But the youth of the 
United States learn of their epic by paying a dollar to see the 
“Wild West Show.” 

The plain truth of the matter is that we have neglected our epic 
— the black shame of it be on us — and no contemporaneous poet or 
chronicler thought it worth his while to sing the song or tell the 
tale of the West because literature in the day when the West was 
being won was a cult indulged in by certain well-bred gentlemen 


28 i 


A Neglected Epic 

in New England who looked eastward to the Old World, to the 
legends of England and Norway and Germany and Italy for their 
inspiration, and left the great, strong, honest, fearless, resolute deeds 
of their own countrymen to be defamed and defaced by the nameless 
hacks of the “yellow back” libraries. 

One man — who wrote “How Santa Claus Came to Simpson’s 
Bar” — one poet, one chronicler did, in fact, arise for the moment, 
who understood that wild, brave life and who for a time gave 
promise of bearing record of things seen. 

One of the requirements of an epic — a true epic — is that its 
action must devolve upon some great national event. There was no 
lack of such in those fierce years after ’49. Just that long and ter- 
rible journey from the Mississippi to the ocean is an epic in itself. 
Yet no serious attempt has ever been made by an American author 
to render into prose or verse this event in our history as “national'’ 
in scope, in origin and in results as the Revolution itself. The 
prairie schooner is as large a figure in the legends as the black ship 
that bore Ulysses homeward from Troy. The sea meant as much 
to the Argonauts of the fifties as it did to the Ten Thousand. 

And the Alamo ! There is a trumpet-call in the word ; and only 
the look of it on the printed page is a flash of fire. But the very 
histories slight the deed, and to many an American, born under the 
same flag that the Mexican rifles shot to ribbons on that splendid 
day, the word is meaningless. Yet Thermopylae was less glorious, 
and in comparison with that siege the investment of Troy was mere 
wanton riot. At the very least the Texans in that battered adobe 
church fought for the honor of their flag and the greater glory of 
their country, not for loot or the possession of the person of an 
adulteress. Young men are taught to consider the “Iliad,” with its 
butcheries, its glorification of inordinate selfishness and vanity, 
as a classic. Achilles, murderer, egoist, ruffian, and liar, is a hero. 
But the name of Bowie, the name of the man who gave his life to 
his flag at the Alamo, is perpetuated only in the designation of a 
knife. Crockett is the hero only of a “funny story” about a sa- 
gacious coon ; while T ravis, the boy commander who did what Gor- 
don with an empire back of him failed to do, is quietly and definitely 
ignored. 

Because we have done nothing to get at the truth about the 
West ; because our best writers have turned to the old-country folk- 
lore and legends for their inspiration; because “melancholy harle- 
quins” strut in fringed leggings upon the street-corners, one hand 


282 


Essays on Authorship 

held out for pennies, we have come to believe that our West, our 
epic, was an affair of Indians, road-agents, and desperadoes, and 
have taken no account of the brave men who stood for law and jus- 
tice and liberty, and for those great ideas died by the hundreds, 
unknown and unsung — died that the West might be subdued, that 
the last stage of the march should be accomplished, that the Anglo- 
Saxon should fulfil his destiny and complete the cycle of the world. 

The great figure of our neglected epic, the Hector of our ig- 
nored Iliad, is not, as the dime novels would have us believe, a 
lawbreaker, but a lawmaker; a fighter, it is true, as is always the 
case with epic figures, but a fighter for peace, a calm, grave, strong 
man who hated the lawbreaker as the hound hates the wolf. 

He did not lounge in barrooms ; he did not cheat at cards ; he did 
not drink himself to maudlin fury; he did not “shoot at the drop of 
the hat.” But he loved his horse, he loved his friend, he was 
kind to little children; he was always ready to side with the weak 
against the strong, with the poor against the rich. For hypocrisy 
and pretence, for shams and subterfuges, he had no mercy, no tol- 
erance. He was too brave to lie and too strong to steal. The odds 
in that lawless day were ever against him ; his enemies were many 
and his friends were few; but his face was always set bravely 
against evil, and fear was not in him even at the end. For such a 
man as this could die no quiet death in a land where law went no 
further than the statute books and life lay in the crook of my neigh- 
bor’s forefinger. 

He died in defence of an ideal, an epic hero, a legendary figure, 
formidable, sad. He died facing down injustice, dishonesty, and 
crime; died “in his boots”; and the same world that has glorified 
Achilles and forgotten Travis finds none too poor to do him rev- 
erence. No literature has sprung up around him — this great char- 
acter native to America. He is of all the world-types the one dis- 
tinctive to us — peculiar, particular and unique. He is dead and 
even his work is misinterpreted and misunderstood. His very mem- 
ory will soon be gone, and the American epic, which, on the shelves 
of posterity, should have stood shoulder to shoulder with the “Heim- 
skringla” and the “Tales of the Nibelungen” and the “Song of Ro- 
land,” will never be written. 


THE FRONTIER GONE AT LAST 


Until the day when the first United States marine landed in 
China we had always imagined that out yonder somewhere in the 
West was the borderland where civilization disintegrated and 
merged into the untamed. Our skirmish-line was there, our posts 
that scouted and scrimmaged with the wilderness, a thousand miles 
in advance of the steady march of civilization. 

And the Frontier has become so much an integral part of our 
conception of things that it will be long before we shall all under- 
stand that it is gone. We liked the Frontier; it was romance, the 
place of the poetry of the Great March, the firing-line where there 
was action and fighting, and where men held each other’s lives in 
the crook of the forefinger. Those who had gone out came back 
with tremendous tales, and those that stayed behind made up other 
and even more tremendous tales. 

When we — we Anglo-Saxons — busked ourselves for the first 
stage of the march, we began from that little historic reach of 
ground in the midst of the Friesland swamps, and we set our faces 
Westward, feeling no doubt the push of the Slav behind us. Then 
the Frontier was Britain and the sober peacefulness of land where 
are the ordered, cultivated English farmyards of to-day was the 
Wild West of the Frisians of that century; and for the little chil- 
dren of the Frisian peat cottages Hengist was the Apache Kid and 
Horsa Deadwood Dick — freebooters, law-defiers, slayers of men, 
epic heroes, blood brothers, if you please, of Boone and Bowie. 

Then for centuries we halted and the van closed up with the 
firing-line, and we filled all England and all Europe with our clamor 
because for a while we seemed to have gone as far Westward as it 
was possible; and the checked energy of the race reacted upon it- 
self, rebounded as it were, and back we went to the Eastward again 

crusading, girding at the Mahommedan, conquering his cities, 

breaking into his fortresses with mangonel, siege-engine and cata- 
pult just as the boy shut indoors finds his scope circumscribed and 

fills the whole place with the racket of his activity. 


(283) 


284 Essays on Authorship 

But always, if you will recall it, we had a curious feeling that 
we had not reached the ultimate West even yet, and there was still 
a Frontier. Always that strange sixth sense turned our heads to- 
ward the sunset ; and all through the Middle Ages we were peeking 
and prying into the Western horizon, trying to reach it, to run it 
down, and the queer tales about Vineland and that storm-driven 
Viking’s ship would not down. 

And then at last a naked savage on the shores of a little island 
in what is now our West Indies, looking Eastward one morning, 
saw the caravels, and on that day the Frontier was rediscovered, 
and promptly a hundred thousand of the more hardy rushed to the 
skirmish-line and went at the wilderness as only the Anglo-Saxon 
can. 

And then the skirmish-line decided that it would declare itself 
independent of the main army behind and form an advance column 
of its own, a separate army corps ; and no sooner was this done than 
again the scouts went forward, went Westward, pushing the Fron- 
tier ahead of them, scrimmaging with the wilderness, blazing the 
way. At last they forced the Frontier over the Sierra Nevada 
down to the edge of the Pacific. And here it would have been sup- 
posed that the Great March would have halted again as it did be- 
fore the Atlantic, that here at last the Frontier ended. 

But on the first of May, 1898, a gun was fired in the Bay of 
Manila, still further Westward, and in response the skirmish-line 
[crossed the Pacific, still pushing the Frontier before it. Then came 
a cry for help from Legation Street in Peking, and as the first 
boat bearing its contingent of American marines took ground on the 
Asian shore, the Frontier — at last after so many centuries, after so 
many marches, after so much fighting, so much spilled blood, 
so much spent treasure — dwindled down and vanished; for the 
Anglo-Saxon in his course of empire had circled the globe and 
brought the new civilization to the old civilization, and reached 
the starting-point of history, the place from which the migra- 
tions began. So soon as the marines landed there was no longer 
any West, and the equation of the horizon, the problem of the 
centuries for the Anglo-Saxon, was solved. 

So, lament it though we may, the Frontier is gone, an idiosyn- 
crasy that has been with us for thousands of years, the one peculiar 
picturesqueness of our life, is no more. We may keep alive for 
many years the idea of a Wild West, but the hired cowboys and 
paid rough riders of Mr. William Cody are more like ‘'the real 


The Frontier Gone at Last 285 

thing than can be found to-day in Arizona, New Mexico, or Idaho. 
Only the imitation cowboys, the college-bred fellows who “go out 
on a ranch/’ carry the revolver or wear the concho. The Frontier 
has become conscious of itself, acts the part for the Eastern visitor ; 
and this self-consciousness is a sign, surer than all others, of the 
decadence of a type, the passing of an epoch. The Apache Kid and 
Deadwood Dick have gone to join Hengist and Horsa and the heroes 
of the Magnusson Saga. 

But observe. What happened in the Middle Ages when for a 
while we could find no Western Frontier? The race impulse was 
irresistible. March we must, conquer we must, and checked in the 
Westward course of empire, we turned Eastward and expended the 
resistless energy that by blood was ours in conquering the Old 
World behind us. 

To-day we are the same race, with the same impulse, the same 
power and, because there is no longer a Frontier to absorb our 
overplus of energy, because there is no longer a wilderness to con- 
quer and because we still must march, still must conquer, we re- 
member the old days when our ancestors before us found the outlet 
for their activity checked and, rebounding, turned their faces East- 
ward, and went down to invade the Old World. So we. No sooner 
have we found that our path to the Westward has ended than, 
reacting Eastward, we are at the Old World again, marching 
against it, invading it, devoting our overplus of energy to its sub- 
jugation. 

But though we are the same race, with the same impulses, the 
same blood-instincts as the old Frisian marsh people, we are now 
come into a changed time and the great word of our century is no 
longer War, but Trade. 

Or, if you choose, it is only a different word for the same race 
characteristic. The desire for conquest — say what you will — was as 
big in the breast of the most fervid of the Crusaders as it is this 
very day in the most peacefully disposed of American manufac- 
turers. Had the Lion-Hearted Richard lived to-day he would have 
become a “leading representative of the Amalgamated Steel Com- 
panies/' and doubt not for one moment that he would have under- 
l3id his Manchester rivals in the matter of bridge girders. Had 
Mr. Andrew Carnegie been alive at the time of the preachings of 
Peter the Hermit he would have raised a company of gens d J (wmes 
sooner than all of his brothers-in-arms, would have equipped his 
men better and more effectively, would have been first on the ground 


286 


Essays on Authorship 

before Jerusalem, would have built the most ingenious siege-engine 
and have hurled the first cask of Greek fire over the walls 

Competition and conquest are words easily interchangeable, and 
the whole spirit of our present commercial crusade to the East- 
ward betrays itself in the fact that we can not speak of it but in 
terms borrowed from the glossary of the warrior. It is a com- 
mercial “invasion,” a trade “war,” a “threatened attack” on the part 
of America ; business is “captured,” opportunities are “seized,” cer- 
tain industries are “killed,” certain former monopolies are “wrested 
away.” Seven hundred years ago a certain Count Baldwin, a great 
leader in the attack of the Anglo-Saxon Crusaders upon the Old 
World, built himself a siege-engine which would help him enter the 
beleaguered city of Jerusalem. Jerusalem is beleaguered again to- 
day, and the hosts of the Anglo-Saxon commercial crusaders are 
knocking at the gates. And now a company named for another 
Baldwin — and, for all we know, a descendant of the Count — leaders 
of the invaders of the Old World, advance upon the city, and, to 
help in the assault, build an engine — only now the engine is no 
longer called a mangonel, but a locomotive. 

The difference is hardly of kind and scarcely of degree. It is 
a mere matter of names, and the ghost of Saladin watching the 
present engagement might easily fancy the old days back again. 

So perhaps we have not lost the Frontier, after all. A new 
phrase, reversing that of Berkeley’s, is appropriate to the effect that 
“Eastward the course of commerce takes its way,” and we must look 
for the lost battle-line not toward the sunset, but toward the East. 
And so rapid has been the retrograde movement that we must go 
far to find it, that scattered firing-line, where the little skirmishes 
are heralding the approach of the Great March. We must already 
go further afield than England. The main body, even to the re- 
serves, are intrenched there long since, and even continental Eu- 
rope is to the rear of the skirmishers. 

Along about Suez we begin to catch up with them where they 
are deepening the great canal, and we can assure ourselves that we 
are fairly abreast of the most distant line of scouts only when we 
come to Khiva, to Samarcand, to Bokhara, and the Trans-Baikal 
country. 

Just now one hears much of the “American commercial invasion 
of England.” But adjust the field-glasses and look beyond Britain 
and search for the blaze that the scouts have left on the telegraph 
poles and mile-posts of Hungary, Turkey, Turkey in Asia, Persia, 


The Frontier Gone at Last 287 

Baluchistan, India, and Siam. You’ll find the blaze distinct and 
the road, though rough hewn, is easy to follow. Prophecy and pre- 
sumption be far from us, but it would be against all precedent 
that the Grand March should rest forever upon its arms and 
its laurels along the Thames, the Mersey, and the Clyde, while 
its pioneers and frontiersmen are making roads for it to the 
Eastward. 

Is it too huge a conception, too inordinate an idea, to say that 
the American conquest of England is but an incident of the Greater 
Invasion, an affair of outposts preparatory to the real manoeuvre that 
shall embrace Europe, Asia, the whole of the Old World? Why 
not? And the blaze is ahead of us, and every now and then from 
far off there in the countries that are under the rising sun we catch 
the faint sounds of the skirmishing of our outposts. One of two 
things invariably happens under such circumstances as these: either 
the outposts fall back upon the main body or the main body moves 
up to the support of its outposts. One does not think that the out- 
posts will fall back. 

And so goes the great movement, Westward, then Eastward, for- 
ward and then back. The motion of the natural forces, the elemen- 
tal energies, somehow appear to be thus alternative — action first, 
then reaction. The tides ebb and flow again, the seasons have their 
slow vibrations, touching extremes at periodic intervals. Not im- 
possibly, in the larger view, is the analogy applicable to the move- 
ments of the races. First Westward with the great migrations, 
now Eastward with the course of commerce, moving in a colossal arc 
measured only by the hemispheres, as though upon the equator a 
giant dial hand oscillated, in gradual divisions through the cen- 
turies, now marking off the Westward progress, now traveling pro- 
portionately to the reaction toward the East 

Races must follow their destiny blindly, but is it not possible that 
we can find in this great destiny of ours something a little better 
than mere battle and conquest, something a little more generous 
than mere trading and underbidding? Inevitably with constant 
change of environment comes the larger view, the more tolerant 
spirit, and every race movement, from the first step beyond the 
Friesland swamp to the adjustment of the first American theodo- 
lite on the Himalayan watershed, is an unconscious lesson in patriot- 
ism. Just now we can not get beyond the self-laudatory mood, but 
is it not possible to hope that, as the progress develops, a new 


288 


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patriotism, one that shall include all peoples, may prevail ? The past 
would indicate that this is a goal toward which we trend. 

In the end let us take the larger view, ignoring the Frieslanders, 
the Anglo-Saxons, the Americans. Let us look at the peoples as 
people and observe how inevitably as they answer the great West- 
ward impulse the true patriotism develops. If we can see that it is 
so with all of them we can assume that it must be so with us, and 
may know that mere victory in battle as we march Westward, or 
mere supremacy in trade as we react to the East, is not after all the 
great achievement of the races, but patriotism. Not our present 
day selfish conception of the word, but a new patriotism, whose 
meaning is now the secret of the coming centuries. 

Consider then the beginnings of patriotism. At the very first, 
the seed of the future nation was the regard of family; the ties of 
common birth held men together, and the first feeling of patriotism 
was the love of family. But the family grows, develops by lateral 
branches, expands and becomes the clan. Patriotism is the devo- 
tion to the clan, and the clansmen will fight and die for its su- 
premacy. 

Then comes the time when the clans, tired of the roving life 
of herders, halt a moment and settle down in a chosen spot; the 
tent, becoming permanent, evolves the dwelling-house, and the en- 
campment of the clan becomes at last a city. Patriotism now is 
civic pride; the clan absorbed into a multitude of clans is for- 
gotten; men speak of themselves as Athenians, not as Greeks, as 
Romans, not as Italians. It is the age of cities. 

The city extends its adjoining grazing fields; they include 
outlying towns, other cities, and finally the State comes into 
being. Patriotism no longer confines itself to the walls of the 
city, but is enlarged to encompass the entire province. Men are 
Hanoverians or Wurtemburgers, not Germans; Scots or Welsh, 
not English; are even Carolinians or Alabamans rather than 
Americans. 

But the States are federated, pronounced boundaries fade. State 
makes common cause with State, and at last the nation is born. 
Patriotism at once is a national affair, a far larger, broader, truer 
sentiment than that first huddling about the hearthstone of the 
family. The word “brother” may be applied to men unseen and 
unknown, and a countryman is one of many millions. 

We have reached this stage at the present, but if all signs are 
true, if all precedent may be followed, if all augury may be relied 


The Frontier Gone at Last 289 

on and the tree grow as we see the twig is bent, the progress will 
not stop here. 

By war to the Westward the family fought its way upward to 
the dignity of the nation; by reaction Eastward the nation may in 
patriotic effect merge with other nations, and others and still others, 
peacefully, the bitterness of trade competition may be lost, the busi- 
ness of the nations seen as a friendly quid pro quo, give and take 
arrangement, guided by a generous reciprocity. Every century the 
boundaries are widening, patriotism widens with the expansion, and 
our countrymen are those of different race, even different nations. 

Will it not go on, this epic of civilization, this destiny of the 
races, until at last and at the ultimate end of all we who now arro- 
gantly boast ourselves as Americans, supreme in conquest, whether 
of battleship or of bridge-building, may realize that the true patriot- 
ism is the brotherhood of man and know that the whole world is 
our nation and simple humanity our countrymen ? 


M — IV — Norris 


THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVELIST 


Of all the overworked phrases of overworked book reviewers, 
the phrase, the “Great American Novelist,” is beyond doubt worn the 
thinnest from much handling — or mishandling. Continually the 
little literary middlemen who come between the producers and the 
consumers of fiction are mouthing the words with a great flourish 
of adjectives, scare-heading them in Sunday supplements or pla- 
carding them on posters, crying out, “Lo, he is here !” or “lo, there !” 
But the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing. The G. 
A. N. is either as extinct as the dodo or as far in the future as the 
practical aeroplane. He certainly is not discoverable at the present. 

The moment a new writer of fiction begins to make himself felt 
he is gibbeted upon this elevation — upon this false , insecure eleva- 
tion, for the underpinning is of the flimsiest, and at any moment is 
liable to collapse under the victim’s feet and leave him hanging in 
midair by head and hands, a fixture and a mockery. 

And who is to settle the title upon the aspirant in the last issue ? 
Who is to determine what constitutes the G. A. N.? Your candi- 
date may suit you, but your neighbor may have a very different 
standard to which he must conform. It all depends upon what you 
mean by Great, what you mean by American. Shakespeare has 
been called great and so has Mr. Stephen Phillips. Oliver Wendell 
Holmes was American, and so is Bret Harte. Who is to say? 

And many good people who deplore the decay of American let- 
ters are accustomed to refer to the absence of a G. A. N. as though 
there were a Great English Novelist or a Great French Novelist. 
But do these two people exist? Ask any dozen of your friends to 
mention the Great English Novelist, and out of the dozen you will 
get at least a half-dozen different names. It will be Dickens or Scott 
or Thackeray or Bronte or Eliot or Stevenson, and the same with 
the Frenchman. And it seems to me that if a novelist were great 
enough to be universally acknowledged to be the Great one of his 
country, he would cease to belong to any particular geographical 
area and would become a heritage of the whole world; as, for 

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The Great American Novelist 291 

instance, Tolstoi; when one thinks of him it is — is it not? — as a 
novelist first and as a Russian afterward. 

But if one wishes to split hairs, one might admit that while the 
Great American Novelist is yet to be born, the possibility of A — 
note the indefinite article — A Great American Novel is not too 
remote for discussion. But such a novel will be sectional. The 
United States is a Union, but not a unit, and the life of one part is 
very, very different from the life in another. It is as yet impossible 
to construct a novel which will represent all the various character- 
istics of the different sections. It is only possible to make a picture 
of a single locality. What is true of the South is not true of the 
North. The West is different, and the Pacific Coast is a commu- 
nity by itself. 

Many of our very best writers are working on this theory. Bret 
Harte made a study of the West as he saw it, and Mr. Howells has 
done the same for the East. Cable has worked the field of the Far 
South, and Eggleston has gone deep into the life of the Middle 
West. 

But consider a suggestion. It is an argument on the other side, 
and to be fair one must present it. It is a good argument, and if 
based on fact is encouraging in the hope that the Great man may 
yet appear- It has been said that “what is true — vitally and in- 
herently true — for any one man is true for all men.” Accordingly, 
then, what is vitally true of the Westerner is true of the Bostonian 
— yes, and of the creole. So that if Mr. Cable, say, should only go 
deep enough into the hearts and lives of his creoles, he would at 
last strike the universal substratum and find the elemental thing 
that is common to the creole and to the Puritan alike — yes, and 
to the Cowboy and Hoosier and Greaser and Buckeye and Jay 
Hawker, and that, once getting hold of that , he could produce 
the Great American Novel that should be a picture of the entire 
nation. 

Now, that is a very ingenious argument and sounds very plausi- 
ble. But it won’t do, and for this reason: If an American novelist 
should go so deep into the lives of the people of any one community 
that he would find the thing that is common to another class of 
people a thousand miles away, he would have gone too deep to be 
exclusively American. He would not only be American, but English 
as well. He would have sounded the world-note; he would be a 
writer not national, but international, and his countrymen would be 
all humanity, not the citizens of any one nation. He himself would 


292 Essays on Authorship 

be a heritage of the whole world, a second Tolstoi, which brings us 
back to the very place from which we started. 

And the conclusion of the whole matter? That fiction is very 
good or very bad — there is no middle ground ; that writers of fiction 
in their points of view are either limited to a circumscribed area or 
see humanity as a tremendous conglomerate whole ; that it must be 
either Mary Wilkins or George Eliot, Edward Eggleston or William 
Shakespeare; that the others do not weigh very much in the bal- 
ance of the world’s judgment; and that the Great American Novel 
is not extinct like the dodo, but mythical like the hippogriff, and 
that the thing to be looked for is not the Great American Novelist, 
but the Great Novelist who shall also be an American. 


NEW YORK AS A LITERARY CENTRE 


It has been given to the present writer to know a great many of 
what one may call The Unarrived in literary work, and of course 
to be one himself of that “innumerable caravan,” and speaking 
authoritatively and of certain knowledge, the statement may be 
made that of all the ambitions of the Great Unpublished, the one 
that is strongest, the most abiding, is the ambition to get to New 
York. For these, New York is the “point de depart,” the pedestal, 
the niche, the indispensable vantage ground; as one of the unpub- 
lished used to put it: “It is a place that I can stand on and holler.” 

This man lived in a second-class town west of the Mississippi, 
and one never could persuade him that he might holler from his 
own, his native heath, and yet be heard. He said it would be “the 
voice of one crying in the wilderness.” New York was the place 
for him. Once land him in New York and all would be gas and 
gaiters. 

There are so many thousands like this young man of mine that 
a word in this connection seems appropriate ; and the object of this 
present writing is to protest against this blind and unreasoned 
hegira, and to urge the point that, tradition precedent to the con- 
trary notwithstanding, New York is not a literary centre. 

I am perfectly well aware that this statement savors of heresy, 
but at the same time I think it can be defended. As for instance : 

Time was when Boston claimed the distinction that one now 
denies to New York. But one asserts that Boston made her claims 
good. In those days the reactionary movement of populations 
from the cities toward the country had not set in. A constant resi- 
dence winter and summer in the country was not dreamed of by 
those who had the leisure and the money to afford it. As much 
as possible the New England writers crowded to Boston, or to 
Cambridge, which is practically the same thing, and took root in 
the place. There was their local habitation; there they lived, and 
thence they spread their influence. Remember that at the height of 
the development of the New England school there were practically 

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294 Essays on Authorship 

no other writers of so great importance the length and breadth of 
the land. This huddling about a common point made it possible to 
visit all the homes of nearly all of the most eminent American 
literati in a single day. The younger men, the aspirants, the Un- 
published, however, thrown into such society, could not fail to be 
tremendously impressed, and, banded together as these great ones 
-were, their influence counted enormously. It was no unusual sight 
to see half a dozen of these at the same dinner table. They all 
knew each other intimately, these Bostonians,, and their word was 
Lex, and the neophites came from all corners of the compass to 
hear them speak, and Boston did in good earnest become the Hub, 
the centre of Literary thought and work in the United States. 

But no such conditions obtain in New York to-day. During the 
last ten years two very important things have happened that bear 
upon this question. First has come the impulse toward a country 
life — a continued winter and summer residence in the country. 
Authors more than any other class of workers can afford this, since 
their profession can be carried anywhere. They need no city offices. 
They are not forced to be in touch with the actual business life of 
Broadway. Secondly, since the days of the Bostonian supremacy 
a tremendous wave of literary production has swept over the United 
States. New England has ceased to be the only place where books 
are written. Poems are now indited in Dakota, novels composed in 
Wyoming, essays written in Utah, and criticisms flourish in Kansas. 
A thousand and one Little Centres have sprung up. Literary 
groups are formed everywhere, in Buffalo, in San Francisco, in 
Indianapolis and Chicago. 

All this detracts from the preponderance of any one city, such 
as New York, as Literary dictator. You shall find but a very small 
and meagre minority of the Greater Men of Letters who have their 
homes in Manhattan. Most of them prefer to live in the places 
whereof they treat in their books, in New Orleans, in Indiana, in 
Kentucky, or Virginia, or California, or Kansas, or Illinois. If 
they come to New York at all it is only temporarily, to place their 
newest book or to arrange with publishers for future work. 

The result of this is as is claimed. New York is not a literary 
centre. The publishing houses are there, the magazines, all the 
distributing machinery ; but not the writers. They do not live 
there. They do not care to come there. They regard the place 
simply as a distributing point for their wares. 

Literary centres produce literary men. Paris, London, and 


New York as a Literary Centre 295 

Boston all have their long lists of native-born writers — men who 
y were born in these cities and whose work was identified with them. 
But New York can claim but ridiculously few of the men of larger 
calibre as her own. James Whitcomb Riley is from Indiana. Joel 
Chandler Harris is a Southerner. Howells came from Boston, Cable 
from New Orleans, Hamlin Garland from the West, Bret Harte 
from California, Mark Twain from the Middle West. Harold Fred- 
eric and Henry James found England more congenial than the 
greatest cities of their native land. Even among the younger gen- 
eration there are but few who can be considered as New Yorkers. 
Although Richard Harding Davis wrote accurately and delightfully 
of New York people, he was not born in New York, did not receive 
his first impetus from New York influences, and does not now live 
in New York. Nor is his best work upon themes or subjects in any 
way related to New York. 

In view of all these facts it is difficult to see what the Great 
Unpublished have to gain by a New York residence. Indeed, it is 
much easier to see how very much they have to lose. 

The writing of fiction has many drawbacks, but one of its 
blessed compensations is the fact that of all the arts it is the most 
independent — independent of time, of manner, and of place. 
Wherever there is a table and quiet, there the novel may be written. 
“Ah, but the publishing houses are in New York!” What has 
that to do with it? Do not for a moment suppose that your novel 
will be considered more carefully because you submit it in person. 
It is not as though you were on the lookout for odd jobs which, 
because of a personal acquaintance with editors and publishers, 
might be put in your way. The article, the story, the essay, poem 
or novel is just as good, just as available, just as salable whether it 
comes from Washington Territory or Washington Square. 

Not only this, but one believes that actual residence in New 
York is hostile and inimical to good work. The place, admittedly, 
teems with literary clubs, circles, associations, organizations of 
pseudo-literati, who foregather at specified times to “read papers” 
and “discuss questions.” It is almost impossible for the young 
writer who comes for a first time to the city to avoid entangling 
himself with them; and of the influences that tend to stultify am- 
bition, warp original talent, and definably and irretrievably stamp 
cut the last spark of productive ability one knows of none more 
effective than the literary clubs. 

You will never find the best men at these gatherings. You will 


296 Essays on Authorship 

never hear the best work read in this company, you will never evolve 
any original, personal, definite ideas or ideals under such influence. 
The discussions of the literary clubs are made up of puerile argu- 
ments that have done duty for years in the college text-books. 
Their work — the papers quoted and stories read aloud — is common- 
place and conventional to the deadliest degree, while their “original- 
ity” — the ideas that they claim are their very own — is nothing but 
a distortion and dislocation of preconceived notions, mere bizarre 
effects of the grotesque and the improbable. “Ah, but the spur of 
competition.” Competition is admirable in trade — it is even de- 
sirable in certain arts. It has no place in a literary career. It is 
not as though two or more writers were working on the same story, 
each striving to better the others. That would, indeed, be true 
competition. But in New York, where the young writer; — any 
writer — may see a dozen instances in a week of what he knows is 
inferior work succeeding where he fails, competition is robbed of 
all stimulating effect and, if one is not very careful, leaves only the 
taste of ashes in the mouth and rancor and discontent in the 
heart. 

With other men’s novels the novelist has little to do. What this 
writer is doing, what that one is saying, what books this publishing 
house is handling, how many copies of so-and-so’s book are selling — 
all this fuss and feathers of “New York as a literary centre” should 
be for him so many distractions. It is all very well to sav, “Let us 
keep in touch with the best thought in our line of work.” “Let us 
be in the movement.” The best thought is not in New York; and 
even if it were, the best thought of other men is not so good for you 
as your own thought, dug out of your own vitals by your own un- 
aided efforts, be it never so inadequate. 

You do not have to go to New York for that. Your own ideas, 
your own work will flourish best if left alone untrammeled and un- 
influenced. And believe this to be true, that wherever there is a 
table, a sheet of paper and a pot of ink, there is a Literary Centre 
if you will. You will find none better the world over. 


THE AMERICAN PUBLIC AND “POPULAR” 
FICTION 


The American people judged by Old World standards — even 
sometimes according to native American standards — have always 
been considered a practical people, a material people. 

We have been told and have also told ourselves that we are 
hard-headed, that we rejoiced in facts and not in fancies, and as 
an effect of this characteristic were not given to books. We were 
.not literary, we assumed, were not fond of reading. We, who were 
subjugating a continent, who were inventing machinery and build- 
ing railroads, left it to the older and more leisurely nations — to 
France and to England — to read books. 

On the face of it this would seem a safe assumption. As a 
matter of fact, the American people are the greatest readers in the 
world. That is to say, that, count for count, there are more books 
read in the United States in one year than in any other country of 
the globe in the same space of time. 

Nowhere do the circulations attain such magnitude as they do 
with us. A little while ago — ten years ago — the charge that we did 
not read was probably true. But there must exist some mysterious 
fundamental connection between this recent sudden expansion of 
things American — geographic, commercial, and otherwise — and the 
demand for books. Imperialism, Trade Expansion, the New Pros- 
perity and the Half Million Circulation all came into existence at 
about the same time. 

Merely the fact of great prosperity does not account for the 
wider reading. Prosperous periods, good prices, easy credit and 
a mobile currency have occurred often before without producing 
the demand for books. Something more than prosperity has sud- 
denly swept across the continent and evaded the spirit of the times. 
Something very like an awakening, something very like a renais- 
sance and the 70,000,000 have all at once awakened to the fact that 
there are books to be read. As with all things sudden, there is notice- 
able with this awakening a lack of discrimination, the 70,000,000 

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298 Essays on Authorship 

are so eager for books that, faute de mieux, anything printed will 
pass current for literature. It is a great animal, this American public, 
and having starved for so long, it is ready, once aroused, to devour 
anything. And the great presses of the country are for the most 
part merely sublimated sausage machines that go dashing along in 
a mess of paper and printer’s ink turning out the meat for the 
monster. 

There are not found wanting many who deplore this and who 
blackguard the great brute for his appetite. Softly, softly. If the 
Megatherium had been obliged to swallow wind for sustenance for 
several hundred years, it would be unkind to abuse him because he 
eats the first lot of spoiled hay or overripe twigs that is thrust 
under the snout of him. Patience and shuffle the cards. Once his 
belly filled, and the pachyderm will turn to the new-mown grass 
and fruit trees in preference to the hay and twigs. 

So the studios and the Browning classes need not altogether 
revile the great American public. Better bad books than no books ; 
better half a loaf of hard bread than no frosted wedding-cake. 
The American people, unlike the English, unlike the French and 
other Europeans, have not been educated and refined and endoc- 
trinated for 2,000 years, and when you remember what they have 
done in one hundred years, tamed an entire continent, liberated a 
race, produced a Lincoln, invented the telegraph, spanned the 
plains — when you remember all this, do not spurn the 70,000,000 
because they do not understand Henry James, but be glad that they 
even care for “The Duchess” and “Ouida.” The wonder of it is 
not that they do not read or appreciate the best, but that they have 
set apart any time at all in the struggle of civilizing the wilderness 
and forging steel rivets to so much as pick up any kind or descrip- 
tion of a book. 

Consider the other nations, France for instance — the very sanc- 
tum of Art, the home and birthplace of literature. Compare the 
rural districts of France with the rural districts of the United States, 
and in the comparison allow, if you like, for all the centuries of 
quiet, uninterrupted growth, the wilderness tamed, life domesti- 
cated, reduced to routine, that modern France enjoys. Do you 
suppose for one moment that a bourgeois family of — say — Tours is 
on the same level in the matter of its reading as the household of a 
contractor’s family in — for example — Martinez, California, or 
Cheyenne, Wyoming? 

I tell you there is no comparison whatever. The West may be 


The American Public and “Popular” Fiction 299 

wild even yet, may be what Boston would call uncultured, but it 
reads. There are people in Cheyenne and Martinez who can ex- 
press an opinion — and a more intelligent opinion, mark you — on 
Maeterlinck and Bourget, better than the same class of readers in 
Belgium and France. And quite as likely as not the same class of 
people in the very native countries of the two writers named have 
never so much as heard of these writers. 

This, admittedly, is the exception, but il our exceptional Marti- 
nez and Cheyenne people are so far advanced in literary criticism, 
we may reasonably expect that the rank and file below them are 
proportionately well on. Maeterlinck and Bourget are closed 
books to those rank-and-file readers yet. But again I say, this 
is not the point. The point is, that they are readers at all. Let 
them — in the name of future American literature — read their 
Duchesses and Ouidas and Edna Lyalls and Albert Rosses. What 
are their prototypes in France, Germany, and Russia reading? They 
simply are not reading at all, and as often as not it is not because 
of the lack of taste, but because of the lack of sheer downright 
ability, because they do not know how to read. 

A very great man once said that “books never have done harm,” 
and under this sign let us conquer. There is hardly a better to be 
found. Instead, then, of deploring the vast circulation of mediocre 
novels, let us take the larger view and find in the fact not a weak- 
ness, but a veritable strength. The more one reads — it is a curious 
consolatory fact — the more one is apt to discriminate. The ten- 
year-old who reads “Old Sleuth” to-day, in a little while will find 
Scott more to his liking. Just now the 70,000,000 is ten years old. 
But it is started right. Patience. Books have never done harm, 
and in the end let us be certain that the day will come when the 
real masterpiece, the real literature, will also be selling in its “five 
hundredth thousand.” 


CHILD STORIES FOR ADULTS 


There was a time, none too remote at this date of writing, when 
juvenile and adult fiction were two separate and distinct classifica- 
tions. Boys read stories* for boys and girls stories for girls, and the 
adults contented themselves with the wise lucubrations of their 
equals in years. But the last few years have changed all that — have 
changed everything in American literature, in fact. 

Some far-distant day, when the critics and litterateurs of the 
twenty-second and twenty-third centuries shall be writing of our 
day and age, they will find a name for the sudden and stupendous 
demand for reading matter that has penetrated to all classes and 
corners since 1890. A great deal could be said upon this sudden 
demand in itself, and I think it can be proved to be the first effects 
of a genuine awakening — a second Renaissance. But the subject 
would demand an article by itself, and in the meanwhile we may 
use the term awakening as a self-evident fact and consider not scr 
much the cause as the effects. 

One of the effects, as has been already suggested, is the change 
in classifications. Old forms and formulas are being rapidly broken 
up, one school and style merging into others, till now what 
was once amusement for the children has become entertaining 
for the elders. And vice versa. The abruptness of the awakening 
has disjointed and inverted all the old fabric. “Robinson Crusoe,” 
written for adults, is now exclusively a “juvenile,” while “Treasure 
Island,” written for boys, has been snapped up by the parents. 

Simultaneously with this topsy-turvy business, and I am sure 
in some way connected with it, comes the craze for stories about 
very young children for adult reading. A boy’s story must now 
be all about the doings of men, fighters preferably, man-slayers, 
terrible fellows full of blood and fury, stamping on their quarter- 
decks or counting doubloons by torchlight on unnamed beaches. 

• Meanwhile the boy’s father with a solemn interest is following the 
fortunes of some terrible infant of the kindergarten, or the vagaries 
of a ten-year-old of a country town, or the teacup tragedy of “The 

(300) 


Child Stories for Adults 


3 QI 

Very Little Girl/’ or “The Indiscretion of Pinky Treveth&n,” or 
“The Chastening of Skinny McCleave,” etc., etc. 

It is interesting to try to account for this. It may either be a 
fad or a phase. It is almost too soon to tell, but in either case the 
matter is worth considering. 

Roughly speaking, the Child’s Stories for Adults fall into three 
classes. First there is “The Strange Child Story.’’ This is a very 
old favorite, and was pretty well installed long before the more re- 
cent developments. In “The Strange Child Story” the bid for the 
reader’s pity and sympathy fairly clamored from between the lines. 
Always and persistently The Strange Child was misunderstood. He 
had “indefinable longings” that were ridiculed, budding talents that 
were nipped, heartaches — terrible, tear-compelling heartaches — that 
were ignored ; and he lived in an atmosphere of gloom, hostility and 
loneliness that would have maddened an eremite. 

But as his kind declined in popular estimate the country boy, the 
ten-year-old — who always went in swimmin’ and lost his tow — ap- 
peared in the magazines. There is no sentiment about him. Never 
a tear need be shed over the vicarious atonements of Pinky Treve- 
than or Skinny McCleave. 

It is part of the game to pretend that the Pinkys and Skinnys 
and Peelys and Mickeys are different indivdiuals. Error. They are 
merely different names of the boy that perenially and persistently 
remains the same. Do you know who he is? He is the average 
American business man before he grew up. That accounts for his 
popularity. The average business man had- clean forgotten all about 
those early phases of primitive growth, and it amuses him immensely 
to find out that the scribe has been making a study of him and bring- 
ing to light the forgotten things that are so tremendously familiar 
when presented to the consideration. It is not fiction nor yet lit- 
erature in the straightest sense of the word, this rehabilitation of 
Skinny McCleave. It has a value vaguely scientific, the same value 
that a specimen, a fossil insect, has when brought to the attention 
of the savant. It is the study of an extinct species, a report upon 
the American boy of thirty years ago. 

Then lastly — the latest development — there is the cataclysm of 
the kindergarten, the checked apron drama, the pigtail passion, the 
epic of the broken slate-pencil. This needs a delicacy of touch that 
only a woman can supply, and as a matter of fact it is for the most 
part women who sign the stories. The interest in these is not so 
personal and retrospective as in the Skinny McCleave circle, for the 


302 Essays on Authorship 

kindergarten is too recent to be part of the childhood memories of 
the present generation of adult magazine readers. It is more in- 
formative, a presentation of conditions hitherto but vaguely known, 
and at the same time it is an attempt to get at and into the heart 
and head of a little child. 

And in this last analysis it would seem as if here existed the 
barrier insurmountable. It is much to be doubted if ever a genius 
will arise so thoughtful, so sensitive, that he will penetrate into more 
than the merest outside integument of a child’s heart. Certain 
phases have been guessed at with beautiful intuition, certain rare 
insights have been attained with exquisite nicety, but somehow even 
the most sympathetic reader must feel that the insight is as rare as 
the interest is misguided. 

Immanuel Kant conceived of and, in the consummate power 
of his intellect, executed the “Critique of Pure Reason”; Darwin 
had taken the adult male and female human and tracked down their 
every emotion, impulse, quality and sentiment. The intellectual 
powers and heart-beats of a Napoleon or a Shakespeare have been 
reduced to mere commonplace corner gossip, but after thousands 
of years of civilization, with the subject ever before us, its work- 
ings as near to us as air itself, the mind of a little child is as much 
a closed book, as much an enigma, as much a blank space upon the 
charts of our intellectual progress as at the very first. 

Volumes have been written about the child, and stories for and 
of the child, and very learned men have lectured and other very emi- 
nent and noble men have taught, and it has all been going on for 
nineteen hundred and two years. And yet, notwithstanding all this, 
there lurks a mystery deep down within the eye of the five-year- 
old, a mystery that neither you nor I may know. You may see and 
understand what he actually does, but the thinking part of him is 
a second hidden nature that belongs to him and to other children, 
not to adults, not even to his mother. Once the older person invades 
the sphere of influence of this real undernature of the child and it 
congeals at once. It thaws and thrives only in the company of other 
children, and at the best we older ones may see it from a distance 
and from the outside. Between us and them it would appear that a 
great gulf is bridged ; there is no knowing the child as he really is, 
and until the real child can be known the stories about him and 
the fiction and literature about him can at best be only a substi- 
tute for the real knowledge that probably never shall be ours. 


NEWSPAPER CRITICISMS AND AMERICAN 

FICTION 

The limitations of space impose a restricted title, and one ’ 
hastens to qualify the substantive “criticisms” by the adjective 
“average.” Even “average” is not quite specialized enough; “vast 
majority” is more to the sense, and the proposition expanded to its 
fullest thus stands, “How is the vast majority of newspaper criti- 
cisms made, and how does it affect American Fiction?” And it 
may not be inappropriate at the outset to observe that one has ad- 
ventured both hazards — criticism (of the “vast majority” kind) and 
also Fiction. One has criticised and has been criticised. Possibly 
then it may be permitted to speak a little authoritatively ; not as the 
Scribes. Has it not astonished you how many of those things called 
by the new author “favorable reviews” may attach themselves — 
barnacles upon a lifeless hulk — to a novel that you know, that you 
know every one must, must know, is irretrievably bad? “On the 

whole, Mr. ’s story is a capital bit of vigorous writing that 

we joyfully recommend” — “A thrilling story palpitating with life,” 
“One of the very best novels that has appeared in a long time,” and 
the ever-new, ever-dutiful, ever-ready encomium, “Not a dull page 
in the book” (as if by the furthest stretch of conceivable human 
genius a book could be written that did not have a dull page ; as if 
dull pages were not an absolute necessity). All these you may see 
strung after the announcement of publication of the novel ; no mat- 
ter, I repeat, how outrageously bad the novel may be. Now, there 
is an explanation of this matter, and it is to be found not in the 
sincere admiration of little reviewers who lack the ingenuity to in- 
vent new phrases, but in the following fact: it is easier to write 
favorable than unfavorable reviews. It must be borne in mind that 
very few newspapers (comparatively) employ regularly paid book- 
reviewers whose business it is to criticise novels — and nothing else. 
Most book-reviewing is done as an odd job by sub-editors, assistants, 
and special writers in the intervals between their regular work. 
They come to the task with a brain already jaded, an interest so 

(303) 


304 Essays on Authorship 

low as to be almost negligible, and with — as often as not — a mind 
besieged by a thousand other cares, responsibilities, and projects. 

The chief has said something like this (placing upon the scribe’s 
table a column of novels easily four feet high, sent in for review) : 

“Say, B , these things have been stacking up like the devil 

lately, and I don’t want ’em kicking ’round the office any longer. 
Get through with them as quick as you can, and remember that in 
an hour there’s such and such to be done.” 

I tell you I have seen it happen like this a hundred times. And 
the scribe “must” read and “review” between twenty and thirty 
books in an hour’s time. One way of doing it is to search in the 
pages of the book for the “publisher’s notice,” a printed slip that 
has a favorable review — that is what it amounts to — all ready-made. 
The scribe merely turns this in with a word altered here and there. 
How he reviews the books that have not this publisher’s notice 
Heaven only knows. He is not to blame, as they must be done in 
an hour. Twenty books in sixty minutes — three minutes to each 
book. Now, it is impossible to criticise a book adversely after a 
minute and a half of reading (we will allow a minute and a half 
for writing the review). In order to write unfavorably it is neces- 
sary to know what one is writing about. But it is astonishing how 
much commendatory palaver already exists that can be applied to 
any kind or condition of novel. Is it a novel of adventure (the re- 
viewer may know if it be such by the ship on the cover design — 
it will be appropriate to use these terms : “Vibrant with energy,” or 
“Full of fine fighting,” or “The reader is carried with breathless in- 
terst from page to page of this exciting romance.” Is it a novel of 
rural life? These may be made use of: “Replete with quaint hu- 
mor,” “A faithful picture of an interesting phase of American life,” 
etc., etc. Is it a story of the West (you can guess that from the 
chapter headings), it will be proper to say, “A strong and vital por- 
traying of the wild life of the trail and frontier.” 

And so one might run through the entire list. The books must 
be reviewed, the easiest way is the quickest, and the quickest way is 
to write in a mild and meaningless phraseology, innocuous, “favor- 
able.” In this fashion is made the greater mass of American 
criticism. As to effects : It has of course no effect upon the novel’s 
circulation. Only one person is at all apt to take these reviews, this 
hack-work, seriously. 

Only one person, I observed, is at all apt to take these reviews 
seriously — this way lies the harm — the new writer, the young fel- 


Newspaper Criticisms and American Fiction 305 

low with his first book, who may not know the ways of reviewers ; 
the author, who collects these notices and pastes them in a scrap- 
book. He is perilously prone to believe what the hacks say, to be- 
lieve that there is “no dull page in the story/’ that his novel is “one 
of the notable contributions to recent fiction/’ and cherishing this 
belief he is fated to a wrench and a heartache when, six months 
after publication day, the semi-annual account of copies sold is ren- 
dered. There is unfortunately no palaver in the writing of this — 
no mild-mannered phraseology; and the author is made to see sud- 
denly that “this exciting romance” which the reviewers have said 
the readers “would follow with a breathless interest till the end 
is reached and then wish for more,” has circulated among — possibly 
— five hundred of the breathless. 

Thus, then, the vast majority of criticisms. It is not all, how- 
ever, and it is only fair to say that there are exceptions — great 
papers which devote whole supplements to the consideration of 
literary matters and whose reviewers are deliberate, thoughtful 
fellows, who do not read more than one book a week, who sign their 
opinions and who have themselves a name, a reputation, to make 
or keep. These must have an effect. But even the most conspicu- 
ous among them can not influence very widely. They may help, so 
one believes, a good book which is already becoming popular. No 
one of them can “make” a book by a “favorable review,” as they 
could a little while ago in France. No number of them could do it, 
here in America. There are too many other reviewers. No one 
man, nor aggregation of men, can monopolize the requisite au- 
thority. And then with us the spirit of independent thinking and 
judgment is no doubt too prevalent. 


NOVELISTS TO ORDER— WHILE YOU WAIT 


Not at all absurd, “Novelists to order — while you wait,” pro- 
vided you order the right sort, and are willing to wait long enough. 
In other words, it is quite possible to make a novelist, and a good 
one, too, if the thing is undertaken in the right spirit, just as it is 
possible to make a painter, or an actor, or a business man. 

I am prepared to hear the old objections raised to this: “Ah, 
it must be born in you”; “no amount of training can ‘make’ an 
artist”; “poets are bom and not made,” etc., etc. But I am also 
willing to contend that a very large percentage of this talk is sheer 
nonsense, and that what the world calls “genius” is, as often as not, 
the results of average ability specialized and developed. The origi- 
nal “spark” in the child-mind, that later on “kindles the world into 
flame with its light,” I do believe could be proved to be the same for 
the artist, the actor, the novelist, the inventor, even the financier and 
“magnate.” It is only made to burn in different lamps. Nor does 
any one believe that this “spark” is any mysterious, supernatural 
gift, some marvelous, angelic “genius,” God-given, Heaven-given, 
etc., etc., etc., but just plain, forthright, rectangular, everyday com- 
mon-sense, nothing more extraordinary or God-given than sanity. 
If it were true that Genius is the gift of the gods, it would also 
be true that hard work in cultivating it would be superfluous. As 
well be without genius if some plodder, some dullard, can by such 
work equal the best you can do — you with your God-given faculties. 

Is it not much more reasonable — more noble, for the matter of 
that — to admit at once that all faculties, all intellects, are God- 
given, the only difference being that some are specialized to one 
end, some to another, some not specialized at all. We call Rostand 
and Mr. Carnegie geniuses, but most of us would be unwilling to 
admit that the genius of the American financier differed in kind 
from the genius of the French dramatist. However, one believes 
that this is open to debate. As for my part, I suspect that, given a 
difference in environment and training, Rostand would have con- 
(306) 


Novelists to Order — While You Wait 307 

solidated the American steel companies and Carnegie have written 
“L’Aiglon.” But one dares to go a little further — a great deal 
further — and claims that the young Carnegie and the young Rostand 
were no more than intelligent, matter-of-fact boys, in no wise dif- 
ferent from the common house variety, grammer school product. 
They have been trained differently, that is all. 

Given the ordinary intelligent ten-year-old, and, all things being 
equal, you can make anything you like out of him — a minister of the 
gospel or a green-goods man, an electrical engineer or a romantic 
poet, or — return to our muttons — a novelist. If a failure is the 
result, blame the method of training, not the quantity or quality of 
the ten-year-old’s intellect. Don't say, if he is a failure as a fine 
novelist, that he lacks genius for writing, and would have been a 
fine business man. Make no mistake, if he did not have enough 
“genius” for novel-writing he would certainly have not had enough 
for business. 

“Why, then,” you will ask, “is it so impossible for some men, 
the majority of them, to write fine novels, or fine poems, or paint 
fine pictures? Why is it that this faculty seems to be reserved for 
the chosen few, the more refined, cultured, etc.? Why is it, in a 
word, that, for every artist (using the word to include writers, 
painters, actors, etc.) that appears there are thousands of business 
men, commercial “geniuses”? 

The reason seems to lie in this: and it is again a question of 
training. From the very first the average intelligent American boy 
is trained not with a view toward an artistic career, but with a 
view to entering a business life. If the specialization of his facul- 
ties along artistic lines ever occurs at all it begins only when the 
boy is past the formative period. In other words, most people who 
eventually become artists are educated for the first eighteen or 
twenty years of their life along entirely unartistic lines. Biog- 
raphies of artists are notoriously full of just such instances. The 
boy who is to become a business man finds, the moment he goes to 
school, a whole vast machinery of training made ready for his use, 
and not only is it a matter of education for him, but the whole 
scheme of modern civilization works in his behalf. No one ever 
heard of obstacles thrown in the way of the boy who announces for 
himself a money-making career ; while for the artist, as is said, edu- 
cation, environment, the trend of civilization are not merely indif- 
ferent, but openly hostile and inimical. One hears only of those 
men who surmount — and at what cost to their artistic powers-- 


308 Essays on Authorship 

those obstacles. How many thousands are there who succumb 
unrecorded ! 

So that it has not often been tried — the experiment of making 
a novelist while you wait — i. e., taking a ten-year-old of average in- 
telligence and training him to be a novelist. Suppose all this mod- 
ern, this gigantic perfected machinery — all this resistless trend of 
a commercial civilization were set in motion in favor of the little 
aspirant for honors in artistic fields, who is to say with such a train- 
ing he would not in the end be a successful artist, painter, poet, 
musician, or novelist? Training, not “genius,” would make him. 

Then, too, another point. The artistic training should begin 
much, much earlier than the commercial training — instead of, as 
at present, so much later. 

Nowadays, as a rule, the artist’s training begins, as was said, 
after a fourth of his life, the very best, the most important, has 
been lived. You can take a boy of eighteen and make a business 
man of him in ten years. But at eighteen the faculties that make 
a good artist are very apt to be atrophied, hardened, unworkable. 
Even the ten-year-old is almost too old to begin on. The first ten 
years of childhood are the imaginative years, the creative years, the 
observant years, the years of a fresh interest in life. The child 
“imagines” terrors or delights, ghosts or fairies, creates a world 
out of his toys, and observes to an extent that adults have no idea of. 
(“Give me,” a detective once told me, “a child’s description of a 
man that is wanted. It beats an adult’s every single time.”) And 
imagination, creation, observation, and an unblunted interest in 
life are exactly the faculties most needed by novelists. 

At eighteen there comes sophistication — or a pretended sophisti- 
cation, which is deadlier. Other men’s books take the place of im- 
agination for the young man ; creation in him is satisfied by dramas, 
horse-races, and amusements. The newspapers are his observation, 
and oh, how he assumes to be above any pleasure in simple, vigorous 
life ! 

So that at eighteen it is, as a rule, too late to make a fine novelist 
out of him. He may start out in that career, but he will not go far 
— so far as he would in business. But if he were taken in hand as 
soon as he could write in words of three syllables, and instead of 
being crammed with commercial arithmetic (How many marbles did 
A have? If a man buys a piece of goods at 12^4 cents and sells i 
for 15 cents, etc., etc.) — 

If he had been taken in hand when his imagination was alive. 


Novelists to Order — While You Wait 309 

his creative power vigorous, his observation lynxlike, and his in- 
terest keen, and trained with a view toward the production of origi- 
nal fiction, who is to say how far he would have gone? 

One does not claim that the artist is above the business man. 
Far from it. Only, when you have choked the powers of imagina- 
tion and observation, and killed off the creative ability, and dead- 
ened the interest in life, don’t call it lack of genius. 

Nor when some man of a different race than ours, living in a more 
congenial civilization, whose training from his youth up has been 
adapted to a future artistic profession, succeeds in painting the 
great picture, composing the great prelude, writing the great novel, 
don’t say he was born a “genius,” but rather admit that he was 
made “to order” by a system whose promoters knew how to wait. 


THE “NATURE” REVIVAL IN LITERATURE 


It has been a decade of fads, and “the people have imagined a 
vain thing,” as they have done from the time of Solomon and as no 
doubt they will till the day of the New Jerusalem. And in no other 
line of activity has the instability and changeableness of the taste 
of the public been so marked as in that of literature. Such an over- 
turning of old gods and such a setting up of new ones, such an 
image-breaking, shrine-smashing, relic-ripping carnival I doubt has 
ever been witnessed in all the history of writing. It has been a sort 
of literary Declaration of Independence. For half a century certain 
great names, from Irving down to Holmes, were veritable Abra- 
cadabras — impeccable, sanctified. Then all at once the dn-de-siecle 
irreverence seemed to invade all sorts and conditions simultaneously, 
and the sombre, sober idols were shouldered off into the dark niches, 
and not a man of us that did not trundle forth his own little tin-god- 
on-wheels, kowtowing and making obeisance, and going before with 
cymbals and a great noise, proclaiming a New Great One; now it 
was the great Colonial Image, now the Great Romantic Image, now 
the Great Minor-German Kingdom Image. 

There are a great many very eminent and very wise critics 
who frown upon and deplore the reaction. But it is a question if, 
after all, the movement will not prove — ultimately — beneficial. Con- 
vention, blind adherence to established forms, inertia, is the dry rot 
of a national literature. Better the American public should read 
bad books than no books, and that same public is reading now as 
never before. It is a veritable upheaval, a breaking-up of all the 
old grounds. Better this than supineness; better this than immo- 
bility. Once the ground turned over a bit, harrowed and loosened, 
and the place is made ready for the good seed. 

Some of this, one chooses to believe, has already been implanted. 
In all the parade of the new little tin-gods some may be discovered 
that are not tin, but sterling. Of all the fads, the most legitimate, 
the most abiding, the most inherent — so it would appear — is the 
“Nature” revival. Indeed, it is not fair to call it a fad at all. For 
it is a return to the primitive, sair Hfe of the country, and the 

(3io) 


The “Nature” Revival in Literature j 1 1 

natural thing by its very character can not be artificial, can not be 
a “fad.” The writers who have followed where Mr. Thompson 
Seton blazed the way are so numerous and so well known that it 
is almost superfluous in this place to catalogue or criticise them. But 
it is significant of the strength of this movement that such an out- 
door book as “Bob, Son of Battle,” was unsuccessful in England, 
and only attained its merited popularity when published here in 
America. We claimed the “good gray dog” as our own from the 
very first, recognizing that the dog has no nationality, being indeed 
a citizen of the whole world. The flowers in “Elizabeth’s German 
Garden” — also world citizens — we promptly transplanted to our own 
soil. Mr. Mowbray, with his mingling of fact and fiction, made 
his country home for the benefit — I have no doubt — of hundreds 
who have actually worked out the idea suggested in his pages. The 
butterfly books, the garden books, the flower books, expensive as 
they are, have been in as much demand as some very popular novels. 
Mr. Dugmore astonished and delighted a surprisingly large public 
with his marvelous life-photographs of birds, while even President 
Roosevelt himself deemed Mr. Wallihan’s “Photographs of Big 
Game” of so much importance and value that he wrote the intro- 
ductory notice to that excellent volume. 

It is hardly possible to pick up a magazine now that does not 
contain the story of some animal hero. Time was when we rele- 
gated this sort to the juvenile periodicals. But now we can not get 
too much of it. Wolves, rabbits, hounds, foxes, the birds, even the 
reptilia, all are dramatized, all figure in their little roles. Tobo and 
the Sand-hill Stag parade upon the same pages as Mr. Christy’s 
debutantes and Mr. Smedley’s business men, and, if you please, 
have their love affairs and business in precisely the same spirit. 
All this can not but be significant, and, let us be assured, significant 
of good. The New England school for too long dominated the 
entire range of American fiction — limiting it, specializing it, polish- 
ing, refining and embellishing it, narrowing it down to a veritable 
cult, a thing to be safeguarded by the elect, the few, the aristocracy. 
It is small wonder that the reaction came when and as it did ; small 
wonder that the wearied public, roused at length, smashed its idols 
with such vehemence ; small wonder that, declaring its independence 
and finding itself suddenly untrammeled and unguided, it flew off 
mobbishly toward false gods, good only because they were new. 

All this is small wonder. The great wonder is this return to 
nature, this unerring groping backward toward the fundamentals, in 


3 12 Essays on Authorship 

order to take a renewed grip upon life. If you care to see a prool 
of how vital it is, how valuable, look into some of the magazines of 
the seventies and eighties. It is astonishing to consider that we ever 
found an interest in them. The effect is like entering a darkened 
room. And not only the magazines, but the entire literature of the 
years before the nineties is shadowed and oppressed with the bug- 
bear of “literature.” Outdoor life was a thing apart from our read- 
ing. Even the tales and serials whose mise en scene was in the 
country had no breath of the country in them. The “literature” in 
them suffocated the life, and the humans with their everlasting con- 
sciences, their heated and artificial activities, filled all the horizon, 
admitting the larks and the robins only as accessories ; considering 
the foxes, the deer and the rabbits only as creatures to be killed, to 
be pursued, to be exterminated. But Mr. Seton and his schoo' , and 
the Mowbrays, and the Ollivants, the Dugmores and the Wallihans 
opened a door, opened a window, and mere literature has had to 
give place to life. The sun has come in and the great winds, and 
the smell of the baking alkali on the Arizona deserts, and the reek 
of the tar- weed on the Colorado slopes; and nature. has ceased to 
exist as a classification of science, has ceased to be raw-understood 
as an aggregate of botany, zoology, geology and the like, and has 
become a thing intimate and familiar and rejuvenating. 

There is no doubt that the estate of American letters is expe- 
riencing a renaissance. Formality, the old idols, the demi-gorgons 
and autocrats no longer hold an absolute authority. A multitude of 
false gods are clamoring for recognition, shouldering one another 
about to make room for their altars, soliciting incense as if it were 
patronage. No doubt these “draw many after them ,” but the “na- 
ture revival” has brought the galvanizing, vital element into this 
tumult of little inkling sham divinities and has shown that life is 
better than “literature,” even if the “literature” be of human beings 
and the life be that of a faithful dog. 

Vitality is the thing, after all. Dress the human puppet never 
so gayly, bedeck it never so brilliantly, pipe before it never so 
cunningly, and, fashioned in the image of God though it be, just 
so long as it is a puppet and not a person, just so long the great 
heart of the people will turn from it, in weariness and disgust, to 
find its interest in the fidelity of the sheep-dog of the North o’ 
England, the intelligence of a prairie wolf of Colorado, or the death- 
fight of a bull moose in the timberlands of Ontario. 


THE MECHANICS OF FICTION 

We approach a delicate subject. And if the manner of approach 
is too serious it will be very like the forty thousand men of the 
King of France who marched terribly and with banners to the top 
of the hill with the meagre achievement of simply getting there. 
Of all the arts, as one has previously observed, that of novel- writing 
is the least mechanical. Perhaps, after all, rightly so; still it is 
hara^'to escape some formality, some forms. There must always be 
chapter divisions; also a beginning and an end, which implies a 
middle; continuity, which implies movement, which in turn implies 
a greater speed or less, an accelerated, retarded or broken action; 
and before the scoffer is well aware he is admitting a multitude of 
set forms. No one who sets a thing in motion but keeps an eye 
and a hand upon its speed. No one who constructs but keeps watch 
upon the building, strengthening here, lightening there, here at the 
foundations cautious and conservative, there at the cornice fan- 
tastic and daring. In all human occupations, trades, arts or busi- 
ness, science, morals or religion, there exists, ’way at the bottom, a 
homogeneity and a certain family likeness, so that, quite possibly 
after all, the discussion of the importance of the mechanics of fiction 
may be something more than mere speculative sophistry. 

A novel addresses itself primarily to a reader, and it has been 
so indisputably established that the reader’s time and effort of at- 
tention must be economized that the fact need not be mentioned in 
this place — it would not economize the reader’s time nor effort of 
attention. 

Remains then the means to be considered, or, in other words, 
How best to tell your story. 

It depends naturally upon the nature of the story. The formula 
which would apply to one would not be appropriate for another. 
That is very true, but at the same time it is hard to get away from 
that thing in any novel which is let us call the pivotal event All 
good novels have one. It is the peg upon which the fabric of the 
thing hangs, the nucleus around which the shifting drifts and cur- 
rents must — suddenly — coagulate, the sudden releasing of the brake 

(313) N— IV— Norris 


314 Essays on Authorship 

to permit for one instant the entire machinery to labor, full steam, 
ahead. Up to that point the action must lead; from it, it must 
decline. 

But — and here one holds at least one mechanical problem — the 
approach, the leading up to this pivotal event, must be infinitely 
slower than the decline. For the reader’s interest in the story 
centres around it, and once it is disposed of attention is apt to 
dwindle very rapidly — and thus back we go again to the economy 
proposition. 

It is the slow approach, however, that tells. The unskilled, im- 
patient of the tedium of meticulous elaboration, will rush at it in a 
furious gallop of short chapters and hurried episodes, so that he 
may come the sooner to the purple prose declamation and drama 
that he is sure he can handle with such tremendous effect. 

Not so the masters. Watch them during the first third — say — 
of their novels. Nothing happens — or at least so you fancy. Peo- 
ple come and go, plans are described, localities, neighborhoods; an 
incident crops up just for a second for which you can see no reason, 
a note sounds that is puzzlingly inappropriate. The novel continues. 
There seems to be no progress; again that perplexing note, but a 
little less perplexing. By now we are well into the story. There 
are no more new people, but the old ones come back again and 
again, and yet again; you remember them now after they are off 
the stage; you are more intimate with the two main characters. 
Then comes a series of petty incidents in which these two are 
prominent. The action still lags, but little by little you are getting 
more and more acquainted with these principal actors. Then per- 
haps comes the first acceleration of movement. The approach be- 
gins — ever so little — to rise, and that same note which seemed at 
first so out of tune sounds again and this time drops into place 
in the progression, beautifully harmonious, correlating the whole 
gamut. By now all the people are “on”; by now all the ground- 
work is prepared. You know the localities so well that you could 
find your way about among them in the dark ; hero and. heroine are 
intimate acquaintances. 

Now the action begins to increase in speed. The complication 
suddenly tightens ; all along the line there runs a sudden alert. An 
episode far back there in the first chapter, an episode with its ap- 
propriate group of characters, is brought forward and, coming 
suddenly to the front, collides with the main line of development 
and sends it off upon an untirely unlooked-for tangent. Another 


The Mechanics of Fiction 


3 1 5 

episode of the second chapter — let us suppose — all at once makes 
common cause with a more recent incident, and the two produce a 
wholly unlooked-for counter-influence which swerves the main 
theme in still another direction, and all this time the action is speed- 
ing faster and faster, the complication tightening and straining to 
the breaking point, and then at last a “motif” that has been in 
preparation ever since the first paragraph of the first chapter of the 
novel suddenly comes to a head, and in a twinkling the complica- 
tion is solved with all the violence of an explosion, and the catastro- 
phe, the climax, the pivotal event fairly leaps from the pages with 
a rush of action that leaves you stunned, breathless and over- 
whelmed with the sheer power of its presentation. And there is a 
master-work of fiction. 

Reading, as the uninitiated do, without an eye to the mechanics, 
without a consciousness of the wires and wheels and cogs and 
springs of the affair, it seems inexplicable that these great scenes 
of fiction — short as they are — some of them less than a thousand 
words in length — should produce so tremendous an effect by such 
few words, such simple language; and that sorely overtaxed word, 
“genius,” is made to do duty as the explanation. But the genius is 
rare that in one thousand simple words, taken by themselves, could 
achieve the effect — for instance — of the fight aboard “The Flying 
Scud” in Stevenson’s “Wrecker.” Taken by itself, the scene is 
hardly important except from the point of view of style and felicity 
of expression. It is the context of the story that makes it so tremen- 
dous, and because Osbourne and Stevenson prepared for that very 
scene from the novel’s initial chapter. 

And it seems as if there in a phrase one could resume the whole 
system of fiction mechanics — preparations of effect. 

The unskilled will invariably attempt to atone for lack of such 
painstaking preparation for their “Grand Scenes” by hysteria, and 
by exclamation in presenting the catastrophe. They declaim, they 
shout stamp, shake their fists and flood the page with sonorous 
adjectives, call upon heaven and upon God. They summon to their 
aid every broken-down device to rouse the flaccid interest of the 
reader, and conclusively, irretrievably and ignominiously fail. It 
is too late for heroic effort then, and the reader, uninterested in the 
character, unfamiliar with the locale, unattracted by any charm of 
“atmosphere,” lays down the book unperturbed and forgets it be- 
fore dinner. 

Where is the fault? Is it not in defective machinery? The 


2 1 6 Essays on Authorship 

analogies are multitudinous. The liner with hastily constructed 
boilers will flounder when she comes to essay the storm ; and no 
stoking however vigorous, no oiling however eager, if delayed till 
then, will avail to aid her to ride through successfully. It is not 
the time to strengthen a wall when the hurricane threatens prop 
and stay will not brace it then. Then the thing that tells is the 
plodding, slow, patient, brick-by-brick work, that only half shows 
down there at the foot half-hidden in the grass, obscure, unnoted. 
No genius is necessary for this sort of work, only great patience 
and a willingness to plod, for the time being. 

No one is expected to strike off the whole novel in one con- 
tinued fine frenzy of inspiration. As well expect the stone-mason 
to plant his wall in a single day. Nor is it possible to lay down any 
rule of thumb, any hard-and-fast schedule in the matter of novel- 
writing. But no work is so ephemeral, so delicate, so — in a word — 
artistic that it can not be improved by systematizing. 

There is at least one indisputably good manner in which the 
unskilled may order his work — besides the one of preparation 
already mentioned. He may consider each chapter as a unit, dis- 
tinct, separate, having a definite beginning, rise, height and end, the 
action continuous, containing no break in time, the locality un- 
changed throughout — no shifting of the scene to another environ- 
ment. Each chapter thus treated is a little work in itself, and the 
great story of the whole novel is told thus as it were in a series 
of pictures, the author supplying information as to what has inter- 
vened between the end of one chapter and the beginning of the 
next by suggestion or by actual resume. As often as not the reader 
himself can fill up the gap by the context. 

This may be over-artificial, and it is conceivable th^it there are 
times when it is necessary to throw artificiality to the winds. But 
it is the method that many of the greatest fiction writers have em- 
ployed, and even a defective system is — at any rate, in fiction — 
better than none. 


FICTION WRITING AS A BUSINESS 


The exaggerated and exalted ideas of the unenlightened upon 
this subject are, I have found, beyond all reason and beyond all 
belief. The superstition that with the publication of the first book 
comes fame and affluence is as firmly rooted as that other delusion 
which asks us to suppose that “a picture in the Paris Salon” is the 
certificate of success, ultimate, final, definite. 

One knows, of course, that very naturally the “Eben Holden” 
and “David Harum” and “Richard Carvel” fellows made fortunes, 
and that these are out of the discussion; but also one chooses to 
assume that the average, honest, middle-class author supports him- 
self and even a family by the sale of his novels — lives on his 
royalties. 

Royalties! Why in the name of heaven were they called that, 
those microscopic sums that too, too often are less royal than beg- 
garly? It has a fine sound — royalty. It fills the mouth. It can 
be said with an air — royalty. But there are plenty of these same 
royalties that will not pay the typewriter's bill. 

Take an average case. No, that will not do, either, for the 
average published novel — I say it with my right hand raised — is 
irretrievably, hopelessly and conclusively, a financial failure. 

Take, then, an unusually lucky instance, literally a novel whose 
success is extraordinary, a novel which has sold 2,500 copies. I 
repeat that this is an extraordinary success. Not one book out of 
fifteen will do as well. But let us consider it. The author has 
worked upon it for — at the very least — three months. It is pub- 
lished. Twenty-five hundred copies are sold. Then the sale stops. 
And by the word stop one means cessation in the completest sense 
of the word. There are people — I know plenty of them — who sup- 
pose that when a book is spoken of as having stopped selling, a 
generality is intended, that merely a falling off of the initial demand 
has occurred. Error. When a book — a novel — stops selling, it 
stops with the definiteness of an engine when the fire goes out. It 
stops with a suddenness that is appalling, and thereafter not a copy, 

(317) 


ji 8 Essays on Authorship 

not one single, solitary copy is sold. And do not for an instant 
suppose that ever after the interest may be revived. A dead book 
can no more be resuscitated than ajiead dog. 

But to go back. The 2,500 have been sold. The extraordinary, 
the marvelous has been achieved. What does the author get out 
of it? A royalty of ten per cent. Two hundred and fifty dollars 
for three months’ hard work. Roughly less than $20 a week, a 
little more than $2.50 a day. An expert carpenter will easily make 
twice that, and the carpenter has infinitely the best of it in that he 
can keep the work up year in and year out, where the novelist must 
wait for a new idea, and the novel writer must then jockey and 
manoeuvre for publication. Two novels a year is about as much as 
the writer can turn out and yet keep a marketable standard. Even 
admitting that both the novels sell 2,500 copies, there is only $500 
of profit. In the same time the carpenter has made his $1,800, 
nearly four times as much. One may well ask the question: Is 
fiction writing a money-making profession? 

The astonishing thing about the affair is that a novel may make 
a veritable stir, almost a sensation, and yet fail to sell very largely. 

There is so-and-so’s book. Everywhere you go you hear about 
it. Your friends have read it. It is in demand at the libraries. 
You don’t pick up a paper that does not contain a review of the 
story in question. It is in the “Books of the Month” column. It is 
even, even — the pinnacle of achievement — in that shining roster, 
the list of best sellers of the week. 

Why, of course, the author is growing rich ! Ah, at last he has 
arrived! No doubt he will build a country house out of his royal- 
ties. Lucky fellow; one envies him. 

Catch him unawares and what is he doing? As like as not 
writing unsigned book reviews at five dollars a week in order to pay 
his board bill — and glad of the chance. 

It seems incredible. But one must remember this: That for 
every one person who buys a book there will be six who will 
talk about it. And the half-thousand odd reviewers who are 
writing of the book do not buy it, but receive “editorial” copies 
from the publishers, upon which no royalty is paid. 

I know it for an undisputed fact that a certain novel which has 
ever been called the best American novel of the nineteenth century, 
and which upon publication was talked about, written about and 
even preached about, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, took ten 
years in which to attain the sale of 10,000 copies. Even so famous. 


Fiction Writing as a Business 319 

so brilliant an author as Harold Frederic did not at first sell con- 
spicuously. “That Lawton Girl/’ “The Copperhead,” “Seth’s 
Brother’s Wife,” masterpieces though they are, never made money 
for the writer. Each sold about 2,000 copies. Not until “Theron 
Ware” was published did Mr. Frederic reap his reward. 

Even so great a name as that of George Meredith is not a 
“sesame,” and only within the last few years has the author of 
“Evan Harrington” made more than five or six hundred dollars 
out of any one of his world-famous books. 

But of course there is another side. For one thing, the author 
is put to no expense in the composing of his novel. (It is not 
always necessary to typewrite the manuscript.) The carpenter 
must invest much money in tools; must have a shop. Shop rent 
and tools repaired or replaced cut into his $1,800 of profit. Or 
take it in the fine arts. The painter must have a studio, canvases, 
models, brushes, a whole equipment; the architect must have his 
draughting room, the musician his instrument. But so far as in- 
itial expense is concerned, a half-dollar will buy every conceivable 
necessary tool the novelist may demand. He needs no office, shop 
or studio; models are not required. The libraries of the city offer 
him a quiet working place if the home is out of the question. Nor, 
as one has so often urged, is any expensive training necessary 
before his money-earning capacity is attained. The architect must 
buy instruction for many years. The painter must study in ex- 
pensive studios, the musician must learn in costly conservatories, 
the singer must be taught by high-priced maestros. Furthermore, 
it is often necessary for the aspirant to travel great distances to 
reach the cities where his education is to be furthered; almost 
invariably a trip to and a residence in Europe is indispensable. It 
is a great undertaking and an expensive one to prepare for the 
professions named, and it takes years of time — years during which 
the aspirant is absolutely non-productive. 

But the would-be novel writer may determine between break- 
fast and dinner to essay the plunge, buy (for a few cents) ink and 
paper between dinner and supper, and have the novel under way 
before bedtime. 

How much of an outlay of money does his first marketable novel 
represent? Practically nothing. On the other hand, let us ask 
the same question of, say, the painter. How much money has he 
had to spend before he was able to paint his first marketable pic- 
ture? To reach a total sum he must foot up the expenses of at 


j 20 Essays on Authorship 

least five years of instruction and study, the cost of living during 
that time, the cost of materials, perhaps even the price of a trip to 
Paris. Easily the sum may reach $5,000. Fifty cents’ worth of ink 
and paper do not loom large beside this figure. 

Then there are other ways in which the fiction writer may earn 
money — by fiction. The novelist may look down upon the mere 
writer of short stories, or may even look down upon himself in the 
same capacity, but as a rule the writer of short stories is the man 
who has the money. It is much easier to sell the average short story 
than the average novel. Infinitely easier. And the short story of 
the usual length will fetch $100. One thousand people — think of 
it — one thousand people must buy copies of your novel before it 
will earn so much for you. It takes three months to complete the 
novel — the novel that earns the $250. But with ingenuity the writer 
should be able to turn out six short stories in the same time, and 
if he has ltick in placing them there is $600 earned — more than 
twice the sum made by the novel. So that the novelist may eke 
out the alarming brevity of his semi-annual statements by writing 
and selling “short stuff.” 

Then — so far as the novel is concerned — there is one compen- 
sation, one source of revenue which the writer enjoys, and which 
is, as a rule, closed to all others. Once the carpenter sells his piece 
of work it is sold for good and all. The painter has but one chance 
to make money from the sale of his picture. The architect receives 
payment for his design and there is the end. But the novelist — and 
one speaks now of the American — may sell the same work over 
many times. Of course, if the novel is a failure it is a failure, and 
no more is said. But suppose it is a salable, readable, brisk bit of 
narrative, with a swift action and rapid movement. Properly man- 
aged, this, under favorable conditions, might be its life history: 
First it is serialized either in the Sunday press or, less probably, in 
a weekly or monthly. Then it is made up into book form and sent 
over the course a second time. The original publisher sells sheets 
to a Toronto or Montreal house and a Canadian edition reaps a 
like harvest. It is not at all unlikely that a special cheap cloth 
edition may be bought and launched by some large retailer either 
of New York or Chicago. Then comes the paper edition — with 
small royalties, it is true, but based upon an enormous number of 
copies, for the usual paper edition is an affair of tens of thousands. 
Next the novel crosses the Atlantic and a small sale in England helps 
to swell the net returns, which again are added to — possibly — by 


Fiction Writing as a Business 321 

the “colonial edition” which the English firm issues. Last of all 
comes the Tauchnitz edition, and with this (bar the improbable 
issuing of later special editions) the exploitation ceases. Eight 
separate times the same commodity has been sold, no one of the 
sales militating against the success of the other seven, the author 
getting his fair slice every time. Can any other trade, profession 
or art (excepting only the dramatist, which is, after all, a sister 
art) show the like? Even (speaking of the dramatist) there may 
be a ninth reincarnation of the same story and the creatures of the 
writer’s pages stalk forth upon the boards in cloak and buskin. 

And there are the indirect ways in which he may earn money. 
Some of his ilk there are who lecture. Nor are there found wanting 
those who read from their own works. Some write editorials or 
special articles in the magazines and newspapers with literary de- 
partments. But few of them have “princely” incomes. 


THE “VOLUNTEER MANUSCRIPT” 


At a conservative estimate there are 70,000,000 people in the 
United States. At a liberal estimate 100,000 of these have lost the 
use of both arms ; remain then 69,900,000 who write novels. Indeed, 
many are called, but few — oh, what a scanty, skimped handful that 
few represent — are chosen ! 

The work of choosing these few, or rather of rejecting these 
many, devolves upon the manuscript readers for the baker’s dozen 
of important New York publishing houses, and a strange work it is, 
and strange are the contributions that pass under their inspection. 

As one not unfamiliar with the work of “reading,” the present 
writer may offer a little seasonable advice. 

1. First have your manuscript typewritten. The number of 
manuscripts is too great and the time too short to expect the reader 
to decipher script; and, besides, ideas presented or scenes described 
in type are infinitely more persuasive, more plausible than those 
set down in script. A good story typewritten will appear to 
better advantage; a poor one similarly treated seems less poverty- 
stricken. 

2. Do not, by any manner of means, announce in a prefatory 
note that you “lay no claim to literary excellence,” with the inten- 
tion thereby of ingratiating yourself with regard to the “reader,” 
winning him over by a parade of modesty. Invariably the state- 
ment is prejudicial, producing an effect exactly contrary to the 
one desired. It will make the mildest of “readers” angry. If you 
have no claims upon literary excellence, why in Heaven’s name 
are you bothering him to read your work? 

3. Inclose a forwarding address in case of rejection. This, 
seemingly, is superfluous advice. But it is astonishing how many 
manuscripts come in innocent even of the author’s name, with 
never a scrap nor clew as to their proper destination. 

4. Don’t ask for criticism. The reader is not a critic. He 
passes only upon the availability of the manuscript for the uses 
of the publisher who employs him. And a manuscript of para- 

(322) 


The “Volunteer Manuscript” 323 

mount literary quality may be rejected for any number of reasons, 
none of which have anything to do with its literary worth — or 
accepted for causes equally outside the domain of letters. Crit- 
icism is one thing, professional “reading” quite another. 

5. Don’t bother about “inclosing stamps for return.” The manu- 
script will go back to you by c. o. d. express. 

6. Don’t submit a part of a manuscript. It is hard enough 
sometimes to judge the story as a whole, and no matter how dis- 
couraging the initial chapter may be the publisher will always 
ask to see the remaining portions before deciding. 

7. Don’t write to the publisher beforehand asking him if he will 
consider your manuscript. If it is a novel he will invariably ex- 
press his willingness to consider it. How can he tell whether he 
wants it or not until he, through his “reader,” has seen, it? 

8. Don’t expect to get an answer much before a month. Es- 
pecially if your story has merit, it must pass through many hands 
and be considered by many persons before judgment is rendered. 
The better it is the longer you will wait before getting a report. 

9. Don’t in Heaven’s name, inclose commendatory letters 
written by your friends, favorable reviews by your pastor or by 
the president of the local college. The story will speak for itself 
more distinctly than any of your acquaintances. 

10. Don’t say you will revise or shorten to suit the tastes or 
judgment of the publisher. At best that’s a servile humility that in 
itself is a confession of weakness and that will make you no friends 
at court. 

11. Don’t forward a letter of introduction, no matter from how 
near a friend of the publisher. The publisher will only turn the 
MS. over to his “readers,” and with them the letter from a stranger 
carries no weight. 

12. Don’t write a Colonial novel. 

13. Don’t write a Down East novel. 

14. Don’t write a “Prisoner of Zenda” novel. 

15. Don’t write a novel. 

16. Try to keep your friends from writing novels. 

And of all the rules, one is almost tempted to declare that the 
last two are the most important. For to any one genuinely in- 
terested in finding “good stuff” in the ruck and run of volunteer 
manuscripts, nothing is more discouraging, nothing more ap- 
parently hopeless of ultimate success, than the consistent and uni- 
form trashiness of the day’s batch of submitted embryonic novels. 


324 Essays on Authorship 

Infinitely better for their author had they never been written ; in- 
finitely better for him had he employed his labor — at the very 
least it is labor of three months — upon the trade or profession to 
which he was bred. It is very hard work to write a good novel, 
but it is much harder to write a bad one. Its very infelicity is a 
snare to the pen, its very clumsiness a constant demand for labor- 
ious boosting and propping. 

And consider another and further word of advice — number 17, 
if you please. Don’t go away with that popular idea that your 
manuscript will not be considered, or if really and undeniably good 
will be heedlessly rejected. Bad manuscripts are not read from 
cover to cover. The reader has not the right to waste his employer’s 
time in such unremunerative diligence. Often a page or two will 
betray the hopelessness of the subsequent chapters, and no one 
will demand of the “reader” a perusal of a work that he knows 
will be declined in the end. 

Nor was there ever a sincere and earnest effort that went un- 
appreciated in a publisher’s place of business. I have seen an 
entire office turned upside down by a “reader” who believed he 
had discovered among the batch of voluminous MS. something 
“really good, you know,” and who almost forced a reading of the 
offering in question upon every member of the firm from the senior 
partner down to the assistant salesman. 

As a rule, all manuscripts follow the same routine. From the 
clerk who receives them at the hands of the expressman they go to 
the recorder, who notes the title, address, and date of arrival, and 
also, after turning them over to the junior reader, the fact of the 
transfer. The junior reader’s report upon the manuscript is turned 
in to one of the members of the firm, whose decision is final. The 
manuscript itself goes up to the senior reader, who also reports 
upon it to the firm member. If both reports are unfavorable, this 
latter directs the manuscript to be returned with or without a per- 
sonal letter, as he deems proper. If both the readers’ reports are 
favorable, or even if one is sufficiently laudatory, he calls for the 
manuscript and reads it himself. If he disagrees with the readers’ 
reports, the manuscript is declined. If not, he passes the manu- 
script on to one of the partners of the house, who also reads it. 
The two “talk it over,” and out of the conference comes the ultimate 
decision in the matter. 

Sometimes the circulation manager and head salesman are con- 
sulted to decide whether or not — putting all questions of the book’s 


The “Volunteer Manuscript” 325 

literary merits aside— the “thing will sell/’ And doubt not for a 
moment that their counsel carries weight. 

Another feature of the* business which it is very well to remem- 
ber is that all publishers can not be held responsible for the loss of 
or damage to unsolicited manuscripts. If you submit the MS. of 
a novel you do it at your own risk, and the carelessness of an office- 
boy may lose for you the work of many months — years, even ; 
work that you could never do over again. You could demand 
legally no reparation. The publishers are not responsible. Only 
in a case where a letter signed by one of the “heads” has been sent 
to the author requesting that the manuscript be forwarded does the 
situation become complicated. But in the case of an unknown 
writer the monetary value of his work in a court of law would be 
extremely difficult to place, and even if an award of damages 
could be extorted it would hardly more than pay the typewriter’s 
bill. 

But the loss of manuscript may be of serious import to the 
publisher for all that. That reputation for negligence in the matter 
of handling unsolicited matter fastens upon a firm with amazing 
rapidity. Bothersome as the number of volunteer manuscripts are, 
they do — to a certain extent — gauge the importance of a given 
concern. And as they arrive in constantly increasing quantities, the 
house may know that it is growing in favor and in reputation: and 
so a marked falling off reverses the situation. Writers will be 
naturally averse to submitting manuscripts to offices which are 
known to be careless. And I know of at least one instance where 
the loss of a couple of manuscripts within a month produced a 
marked effect upon the influx of the volunteers. Somehow the 
news of the loss always gets out, and spreads by some mysterious 
means till it is heard of from strangely remote quarters. The 
author will, of course, tell his friends of the calamity, and will 
make more ado over the matter than if his story was accepted. 
Of course, this particular story is the one great masterpiece of 
his career; the crass stupidity of the proud and haughty pub- 
lisher has ruined his chance of success, and the warning: “Don’t 
send your stuff to that firm. It will be lost!” is passed on all 
along the line. So that repeated instances of the negligence 
may in the end embarrass the publisher, and the real masterpiece, 
the first novel of a New Man, goes to a rival. 

I have in mind one case where a manuscript was lost under 
peculiarly distressing circumstances. The “reader,” who had his 


326 Essays on Authorship 

office in the editorial rooms of a certain important house of New 
York, was on a certain day called to the reception room to inter- 
view one of the host of writers who came daily to submit their 
offerings in person. 

In this case the reader confronted a little gentleman in the transi- 
tion period of genteel decay. He was a Frenchman. His mustache, 
tight, trim, and waxed, was white. The frock coat was buttoned 
only at the waist; a silk handkerchief puffed from the pocket, and 
a dried carnation, lamentably faded, that had done duty for many 
days, enlivened with a feeble effort the worn silk lapel. 

But the innate French effervescence, debonair, insouciant , was 
not gone yet. The little gentleman presented a card. Of course 
the name boasted that humblest of titles — baron. The Baron, 
it appeared, propitiated destiny by “Instruction in French, German, 
and Italian,” but now instruction was no longer propitious. With 
a deprecating giggle this was explained; the Baron did not wish 
to make the “reader” feel bad — to embarrass him. 

“I will probably starve very soon,” he observed, still with the 
modifying little giggle, and, of course, the inevitable shrug, “un- 
less — my faith — something turns up.” 

It was to be turned up, evidently, by means of an attenuated 
manuscript which he presented. He had written — during the in- 
tervals of instruction — a series of articles on the character of 
Americans as seen by a Frenchman, and these had been published 
by a newspaper of the town in which he instructed — an absolutely 
obscure town, lost and forgotten, away up among the New Hamp- 
shire hills. 

The articles, he insinuated, might be made into a book — a book 
that might be interesting to the great American public. And, with 
a naivete that was absolutely staggering, he assumed without 
question that the firm would publish his book — that it was really 
an important contribution to American literature. 

He would admit that he had not been paid very liberally by the 
country paper for the articles as they appeared. He was not 
Emile Zola. If he was he might have sold his articles at fifteen or 
twenty dollars each. 

He said just that. Think of it! The poor little Instructor- 
Baron Zola! Fifteen dollars! Well! 

He left the articles — neatly cut out and pasted in a copy-book 
— with the “reader,” and gave as his address a dreadfully ob- 
scure hotel. 


The “Volunteer Manuscript” 327 

The “reader” could not make up his mouth to tell him, even 
before looking over the first paragraph of the first article, that 
as a book the commercial value of the offering was absolutely, 
irrevocably, and hopelessly nil, and so the little manuscript went 
into the mill — and in two days was lost. 

I suppose that never in the history of that particular firm was 
the search for a missing manuscript prosecuted with half the energy 
or ardor that ensued upon the discovery of this particular loss. 
From the desk-files of the senior partner to the shipping-slips of the 
packer’s assistant the hunt proceeded — and all in vain. 

Meanwhile the day approached on which the Baron was to 
come for his answer and at last it arrived, and promptly at the ap- 
pointed hour the poor little card with the hyphenated titled name 
written carefully and with beautiful flourishes in diluted ink was 
handed in. 

Do you know what the publisher did? He wrote the absurd, 
pompous name across the order line of a check and signed his own 
name underneath, and the check was for an amount that would 
make even unpropitious Destiny take off his hat and bow politely. 

And I tell you that my little Instructor-Baron, with eminent 
good-humor, but with the grand manner of a Marechal du royaamc 
waved it aside. Turenne could have been no more magnificent. 
(They do order these matters better in France.) His whole con- 
cern — hunger-pinched as he may easily have been at the very mo- 
ment — his whole concern was to put the embarrassed publisher 
at his ease, to make this difficulty less difficult. 

He assured him that his articles were written comme-ci commc- 
ca, for his own amusement, that he could not think of accepting, 
etc. 

And I like to remember that this whole affair, just as if it had 
been prepared in advance for a popular magazine whose editor 
insisted upon “happy endings,” did end well, and the publisher, who 
at the moment was involved in the intricacies of a vast corre- 
spondence with a Parisian publishing house, found a small posi- 
tion as translator in one of his sub-departments for the little In- 
structor-Baron who had the great good fortune to suffer the loss 
of a manuscript — in the right place. 

And now the card — engraved, if you please — bears proudly the 
Baron’s name, supported by the inscription, “Official Translator 

and Director of Foreign Correspondence to the Firm of & 

Co., Publishers.” 


RETAIL BOOKSELLER: LITERARY 
DICTATOR 


Of all the various and different kinds and characters of people 
who are concerned in the writing and making of a novel, including 
the author, the publisher, the critic, the salesman, the advertisement 
writer, the drummer — of all this “array of talent,” as the bill- 
boards put it, which one has the most influence in the success of the 
book? Who, of all these, can, if he chooses, help or hurt the sales 
the most? — assuming for the moment that sales are the index of 
success, the kind of success that at the instant we are interested in. 

Each one of these people has his followers and champions. 
There are not found wanting those who say the publisher is the all- 
in-all. And again it is said that a critic of authority can make a 
book by a good review or ruin it by an unfavorable one. The 
salesman, others will tell yoh — he who is closest allied to the money 
transaction — can exert the all-powerful influence. Or again, surely 
in this day of exploitation and publicity the man who concocts great 
“ads” is the important one. 

The author is next included. He can do no more than write 
the book, and as good books have failed and bad ones have suc- 
ceeded — always considering failure and success in their most sordid 
meanings — the mere writing need not figure. But the fact remains 
that there are cases where publishers have exerted every device to 
start a book and still have known it to remain upon their hands ; that 
critics have raved to heaven or damned to hell, and the novel 
has fallen or flown in spite and not because of them; that salesmen 
have cajoled and schemed, and yet have returned with unfilled 
orders, and that advertisements that have clamored so loudly that 
even they who ran must have read, and yet the novel in question re- 
mained inert, immovable, a failure, a “plug.” 

All these, then, have been tried and at times have been found 
wanting. There yet remains one exponent of the business of dis- 
tributing fiction who has not been considered. He, one claims, can 
do more than any or all of the gentlemen just mentioned to launch 
or strand a novel. 

(328) 


The Retailer: Literary Dictator 329 

Now let it be understood that by no possible manner of means 
does one consider him infallible. Again and again have his best 
efforts come to nothing. This, however, is what is claimed: he has 
more influence on success or failure than any of the others. And 
who is he? 

The retailer. One can almost affirm that he is a determining 
factor in American fiction; that, in a limited sense, with him, his is 
the future. Author, critic, analyst and essayist may hug to them- 
'elves a delusive phantom of hope that they are the molders of 
public opinion, they and they alone. That may be, sometimes. But 
consider the toiling and spinning retailer. What does the failure 
or success of the novel mean to the critic? Nothing more than a 
minute and indefinite increase or decrease of prestige. The pub- 1 
lisher who has many books upon his list may recoup himself on one 
failure by a compensating success. The salesman's pay goes on 
just the same whether his order slips are full or blank ; likewise the 
stipend of the writer of “ads.'’ The author has no more to lose — 
materially — than the price of ink and paper. But to the retail 
bookseller a success means money made; failure, money lost. If 
he can dispose of an order of fifty books he is ahead by calculable, 
definite, concrete profits. If he can not dispose of the fifty his loss 
is equally calculable, equally definite, equally concrete. Naturally, 
being a business man, he is a cautious man. He will not order a 
book which he deems unsalable, but he will lay in a stock of one 
that promises returns. Through him the book is distributed to the 
public. If he has a book in stock, the public gets it. If he does not 
have it, the public goes without. The verdict of the public is the 
essential to popularity or unpopularity, and the public can only pass 
verdict upon what it has read. The connection seems clear and 
the proposition proved that the retail bookseller is an almost para- 
mount influence in American literature. 

It is interesting to see what follows from this and to note how the 
letailer in the end can effectually throttle the sham novelist who has 
fooled the public once. Were it not for the retailer, the sham novel- 
ist would get an indefinite number of chances for his life; but so 
long as the small book-dealer lives and acts, just so long will bad 
work — and one means by this wholly bad, admittedly bad, hope- 
lessly bad work — fail to trick the reading public twice. Observe 
now the working of it. Let us take a typical case. A story by an 
unknown writer is published. By strenuous exploitation the pub- 
lishers start a vogue. The book begins to sell. The retailer, ob- 


330 Essays on Authorship 

serving the campaign of publicity managed by the publishers, stocks 
up with fhe volume; surely when the publishers are backing the 
thing so strong it will be a safe venture; surely the demand will 
be great. It does prove a safe venture ; the demand is great ; the re- 
tailer disposes of fifty, then of a second order of one hundred, then 
of two hundred, then of five hundred. The book is now in the 
hands of the public. It is read and found sadly, sadly wanting. It 
is not a good story ; it is trivial ; it is insincere. Far and wide the 
story is condemned. 

Meanwhile the unknown writer, now become famous, is writing 
a second novel. It is finished, issued, and the salesman who travels 
for the publishers begins to place his orders. The retailer, re- 
membering the success of this author’s past venture, readily places 
a large order. Two hundred is not, in his opinion, an overstock. 
So it goes all over the country. Returns are made to the author, 
and he sees that some fifty thousand have been sold. Encouraging, 
is it not? Yes, fifty thousand have been sold — by the publisher to 
the retailer ; but here is the point — not by the retailer to the public. 
Of the two hundred our dealer took from the publisher’s traveling 
salesman, one hundred and ninety yet remain upon his counters. 
The public, fooled once, on the first over-praised, over-exploited 
book, refuse to be taken in a second time. Who is the loser now? 
Not the author, who draws royalties on copies sold to the trades- 
man — the retailer; not the publisher, who makes his profit out of 
the same transaction; but the retailer, who is loaded down with an 
unsalable article. 

Meanwhile our author writes his third novel. So far as he can 
see, his second book is as great a popular success as his first. His 
semi-annual statements are there to show it — there it is in black and 
white; figures can’t lie. The third novel is finished and launched. 
At the end of the first six months after publication day the author 
gets his publisher’s statement of sales. Instead of the expected 
10,000 copies sold, behold the figure is a bare 1,500. At the end of 
the second six months the statement shows about 250. The book 
has failed. Why? Because the retailer refuses to order it. He 
has said to the soliciting salesman, “Why should I, in Heaven’s 
name, take a third book by this man when I have yet one hundred 
and ninety copies of his second novel yet to sell?” 

It is hard for the salesman to controvert that argument. He 
may argue that the third book is a masterpiece, and — mark this — it 
may in fact be a veritable, actual masterpiece, a wonderful contribu- 


The Retailer: Literary Dictator 331 

tion to the world’s literature ; it is all of no effect. There stands the 
block of unsold books, 190 strong, and all the eloquence in the world 
will not argue them off the counter. After this our author’s pub- 
lisher will have none of his books. Even if he writes a fourth and 
submits it, the publisher incontinently declines it. This author is no 
longer a “business proposition.” 

There can not but be an element of satisfaction in all this, and 
a source of comfort to those who take the welfare of their country’s 
literature seriously to heart. The sham novelist who is in literature 
(what shall we say?) “for his own pocket every time” sooner or later 
meets the wave of reaction that he can not stem nor turn and under 
which he and his sham are conclusively, definitely, and irrevocably 
buried. Observe how it works out all down the line. He fools him- 
self all of the time, he fools the publisher three times, he fools the 
retail dealer twice, and he fools the Great American Public just 
exactly once. 


AN AMERICAN SCHOOL OF FICTION? 


It seems to me that it is a proposition not difficult of demonstra- 
tion that the United States of America has never been able to 
boast of a school of fiction distinctively its own. And this is all 
the more singular when one considers that in all other activities 
Americans are peculiarly independent in thought and in deed, and 
have acquired abroad a reputation — even a notoriety — for being 
original. 

In the mechanical arts, in the industries, in politics, in business 
methods, in diplomacy, in shipbuilding, in war, even in dentistry, 
if you please — even in the matter of riding race-horses — Americans 
have evolved their own methods, quite different from European 
methods. 

Hardy and adventurous enough upon all other lines, disdainful 
of conventions, contemptuous of ancient custom, we yet lag behind 
in the arts — slow to venture from the path blazed long ago by 
Old World masters. 

It is pre-eminently so in the fine arts. No sooner does an 
American resolve upon a career of painting, sculpture, or architec- 
ture than straight he departs for Paris, the Beaux Arts and the 
Julien atelier; and, his education finished, returns to propagatf 
French ideas, French methods; and our best paintings to-day an 
more French than American ; French in conception, in composi- 
tion, in technique and treatment. 

I suppose that the nearest we ever came to an organized school 
of native-born Americans, writing about American things from an 
American point of view, was in the days of Lowell, Longfellow, 
Holmes, Whittier, and the rest of that illustrious company. But 
observe: How is this group spoken of and known to litera- 
ture? Not as the American school, but as the New England 
school. Even the appellation “New” England as differentiated 
from “old” England is significant. And New England is not 
America. 

Hawthorne, it will be urged, is a great name among American 

(332) 


An American Schooi of Fiction? 333 

writers of fiction. Not peculiarly American, however. Not so 
distinctively and unequivocally as to lay claim to a vigorous original 
Americanism. “The Scarlet Letter” is not an American story, 
but rather a story of an English colony on North American soil. 
“The Marble Faun” is frankly and unreservedly foreign. Even 
the other novels were pictures of a very limited and circumscribed 
life — the life of New England again. 

Cooper, you will say, was certainly American in attitude and 
choice of subject; none more so. None less, none less American. 
As a novelist he is saturated with the romance of the contemporary 
English story-tellers. It is true that his background is Ameri- 
can. But his heroes and heroines talk like the characters out 
of Bulwer in their most vehement moods, while his Indians 
stalk through all the melodramatic tableaux of Byron, and 
declaim in the periods of the border noblemen in the pages 
of Walter Scott. 

Poe we may leave out of classification ; he shone in every 
branch of literature but that of novel-writing. Bret Harte was 
a writer of short stories and — oh, the pity of it, the folly of it! — 
abandoned the field with hardly more than a mere surface-scratching. 

There can be no doubt that had Mr. Henry James remained in 
America he would have been our very best writer. If he has been 
able to seize the character and characteristics so forcibly of a people 
like the English, foreign to him, different, unfamiliar, what might he 
not have done in the very midst of his own countrymen, into whose 
company he was born, reared and educated? All the finish of 
style, the marvelous felicity of expression would still have been 
his, and at the same time, by the very nature of the life he lived 
and wrote about, the concrete, the vigorous, the simple direct 
action would have become a part of his work, instead of 
the present ultimate vagueness and indecision that so mars and 
retards it. 

Of all the larger names remain only those of Mr. Howells and 
Mr. Clemens. But as the novelists, as such, are under considera- 
tion, even Mark Twain may be left out of the discussion. American 
to the core, posterity will yet know him not as a novel-writer, but 
as a humorist. Mr. Howells alone is left, then, after the elimina- 
tion is complete. Of all producers of American fiction he has had 
the broadest vision, at once a New Englander and a New Yorker, 
an Easterner and — in the Eastern sense — a Westerner. But one 
swallow does not make a summer, nor does one writer constitute 


334 Essays on Authorship 

a “school.” Mr. Howells has had no successors. Instead, just as 
we had with “Lapham” and “The Modern Instance” laid the founda- 
tion of fine, hardy literature, that promised to be our very, very 
own, we commence to build upon it a whole confused congeries of 
borrowed, faked, pilfered romanticisms, building a crumbling 
gothic into a masonry of honest brownstone, or foisting colonial 
porticos upon facades of Montpelier granite, and I can not 
allow this occasion to pass without protest against what I am 
sure every serious-minded reader must consider a lamentable 
discrowning. 

Of the latter-day fiction writers Miss Wilkins had more than 
all others convinced her public of her sincerity. Her field 
was her own ; the place was ceded to her. No other novelist 
could invade her domain and escape the censure that attaches to 
imitation. Her public was loyal to her because it believed 
in her, and it was a foregone conclusion that she would be 
loyal to it. 

More than this : A writer who occupies so eminent a place as 
Miss Wilkins, who has become so important, who has exerted and 
still can exert so strong an influence, cannot escape the responsibil- 
ities of her position. She can not belong wholly to herself, can not 
be wholly independent. She owes a duty to the literature of her 
native country. 

Yet in spite of all this, and in spite of the fact that those who 
believe in the future of our nation’s letters look to such established 
reputations as hers to keep the faith, to protest, though it is only 
by their attitude, silently and with dignity, against corruptions, deg- 
radations ; in spite of all this, and in the heyday of her power, 

Miss Wilkins chooses to succumb to the momentary, transitory 

set of the tide, and, forsaking her own particular work, puts forth, 
one of a hundred others, a “colonial romance.” It is a discrown- 
ing. It can be considered as no less. A deliberate capitulation to 
the clamor of the multitude. Possibly the novelist was sincere, but 
it is perilously improbable that she would have written her “Co- 
lonial Romance” had not “colonial romances” been the fashion. 
On the face of it Miss Wilkins has laid herself open to a sus- 
picion of disingenuousness that every honest critic can only deplore. 
Even with all the sincerity in the world she had not the right 
to imperil the faith of her public, to undermine its confidence in 

her. She was one of the leaders. It is as if a captain, during 

action, had deserted to the enemy. 


An American School of Fiction? 335 

It could not have been even for the baser consideration of 
money. With her success assured in advance Miss Wilkins can 
be above such influences. Nor of fame. Surely no great distinc- 
tion centres upon writers of “colonial romances” of late. Only the 
author herself may know her motives, but we who looked to her 
to keep the standard firm — and high — have now to regret the mis-* 
fortune of a leader lost, a cause weakened. 

However, it is a question after all if a “school,” understood in 
the European sense of the word, is possible for America just yet. 
France has had its schools of naturalism and romance, Russia its 
schools of realism, England its schools of psychologists. But France, 
Russia, and England now, after so many centuries of growth, may 
be considered as units. Certain tendencies influence each one over 
its whole geographical extent at the same time. Its peoples have 
been welded together to a certain homogeneousness. It is under 
such conditions that “schools” of fiction, of philosophy, of science 
and the like arise. 

But the United States are not yet, in the European sense, united. 
We have existed as a nation hardly more than a generation and 
during that time our peoples have increased largely by emigration. 
From all over the globe different races have been pouring in upon 
us. The North has been settled under one system, the South under 
another, the Middle West under another, the East under another. 
South Central and Far West under still others. There is no homo- 
geneousness among us as yet. 

The Westerner thinks along different lines from the Easterner 
and arrives at different conclusions. What is true of California is 
false of New York. Mr. Cable’s picture of life is a far different 
thing than that of Mr. Howells. 

The school of fiction American in thought, in purpose, and in 
standard. But no such thing is possible to-day for American 
writers. Mr. Hamlin Garland could not merge his personality 
nor pool his ideals with Edith Wharton. Their conceptions of 
art are as different as the conditions of life they study in their 
books. 

The school of fiction American in thought, in purpose, and in 
treatment will come in time, inevitably. Meanwhile the best we 
can expect of the leaders is to remain steadfast, to keep unequivo- 
cally to the metes and bounds of the vineyards of their labors ; no 
trespassing, no borrowing, no filching of the grapes of another 
man’s vines. The cultivation of one’s own vine is quite sufficient 


336 Essays on Authorship 

for all energy. We want these vines to grow — in time — to take 
root deep in American soil so that by and by the fruit shall be all 
of our own growing. 

We do not want — distinctly and vehemently we do not want — the 
vine-grower to leave his own grapes to rot while he flies off to 
the gathering of — what? The sodden lees of an ancient crushing. 


NOVELISTS OF THE FUTURE 


It seems to me that a great deal could be said on this subject — 
a great deal that has not been said before. There are so many nov- 
elists these latter days, so many whose works show that they 
have had no training, and it does seem that so long as the fiction 
writers of the United States go fumbling and stumbling along in 
this undisciplined fashion, governed by no rule, observing no for- 
mula, setting for themselves no equation to solve, that just so long 
shall we be far from the desirable thing — an American school of 
fiction. Just now (let us say that it is a pity) we have no school at 
all. We acknowledge no master, and we are playing at truant, 
incorrigible, unmanageable, sailing paper boats in the creek behind 
the schoolhouse, or fishing with bent pins in the pools and shallows 
of popular favor. That some catch goldfish there is no great mat- 
ter, and is no excuse for the truancy. We are not there for the 
goldfish, if you please, but to remain in the school at work till we 
have been summoned to stand up in our places and tell the master 
what we have learned. 

There’s where we should be, and if we do not observe the rules 
and conform to some degree of order, we should be rapped on the 
knuckles or soundly clumped on the head, and by vigorous discipline 
taught to know that formulas (a — b; a-|-b) are important things 
for us to observe, and that each and all of us should address our- 
selves with all diligence to finding the value of x in our problems. 

It is the class in the Production of Original Fiction which of all 
the school contains the most truants. Indeed, its members believe 
that schooling for them is unnecessary. Not so with the other 
classes. Not one single member of any single one of them who 
does not believe that he must study first if he would produce after- 
ward. Observe, there on the lower benches, the assiduous little 
would-be carpenters and stone-masons ; how carefully they con 
their tables of measurement, their squares and compasses. “Ah, 
the toilers,” you say, “the grubby manual fellows — of course they 
must learn their trade!” 


(337) 


O— IV — Norris 


33 8 Essays on Authorship 

Very well, then. Consider — higher up the class, on the very 
front row of benches — the Fine Arts row, the little painters and 
architects and musicians and actors of the future. See how pain- 
fully they study, and study and study. The little stone-mason will 
graduate in a few months; but for these others of the Fine Arts 
classes there is no such thing as graduation. For them there shall 
never be a diploma, signed and sealed, giving them the right to call 
themselves perfected at their work. All their lives they shall be 
students. In the vacations — maybe — they write, or build, or sing, 
or act, but soon again they are back to the benches, studying, study- 
ing always; working as never carpenter or stone-mason worked. 
Now and then they get a little medal, a bit of gold and enamel, a 
bow of ribbon, that is all ; the stone-mason would disdain it, would 
seek it for the value of the metal in it. The Fine Arts people treas- 
ure it as the veteran treasures his cross. 

And these little medals you — the truants, the bad boys of the 
paper boats and the goldfish — you want them, too; you claim them 
and clamor for them. You who declare that no study is necessary 
for you; you who are not content with your catch of goldfish, you 
must have the bits of ribbon and enamel, too. Have you deserved 
them ? Have you worked for them ? Have you found the value of 
* in your equation? Have you solved the parenthesis of your 
problem? Have you ever done the problem at all? Have you even 
glanced or guessed at the equation ? The shame of it be upon you ! 
Come in from the goldfish and go to work, or stay altogether at 
the fishing and admit that you are not deserving of the medal which 
the master gives as a reward of merit. 

“But there are no books that we can study,” you contest. “The 
architect and the musician, the painter and the actor — all of these 
have books ready to hand ; they can learn from codified, systematized 
knowledge. For the novelist, where is there a cut-and-dried sci- 
ence that he can learn that will help him?” 

And that is a good contention. No, there are no such books. 
Of all the arts, the art of fiction has no handbook. Bv no man’s 
teaching can we learn the knack of putting a novel together in the 
best way. No one has ever risen to say, “Here is how the plan 
should be ; thus and so should run the outline.” 

We admit the fact, but neither does that excuse the goldfishing 
and the paper-boat business. Some day the handbook may be com- 
piled— it is quite possible— but meanwhile, and, faute de tnieux, 
there is that which you may study better than all handbooks. 


Novelists of the Future 


339 

Observe, now. Observe, for instance, the little painter scholars. 
On the fly-leaves of their schoolbooks they are making pictures — of 
what? Remember it, remember it and remember it — of the people 
around them. So is the actor, so the musician — all of the occupants 
of the Fine Arts bench. They are studying one another quite as much 
as their books — even more — and they will tell you that it is the most 
important course in the curriculum. 

You — the truant little would-be novelist — you can do this, quite 
as easily as they, and for you it is all the more important, for you 
must make up for the intimate knowledge of your fellows what you 
are forced to lack in the ignorance of forms. But you can not get 
this knowledge out there behind the schoolhouse — hooking gold- 
fish. Come in at the tap of the bell and, though you have no books, 
make pictures on your slate, pictures of the Fine Arts bench strug- 
gling all their lives for the foolish little medals, pictures of the 
grubby little boys in the stone-mason’s corner, jeering the art 
classes for their empty toiling. The more you make these pictures, 
the better you shall do them. That is the kind of studying you can 
do, and from the study of your fellows you shall learn more than 
from the study of all the text-books that ever will be written. 

But to do this you must learn to sit very quiet, and be very 
watchful, and so train your eyes and ears that every sound and 
every sight shall be significant to you and shall supply all the de- 
ficiency made by the absence of text-books. 

This, then, to drop a very protracted allegory, seems to be the 
proper training of the novelist : The achieving less of an aggressive 
faculty of research than of an attitude of mind — a receptivity, an 
acute sensitiveness. And this can be acquired. 

But it can not be acquired by shutting one’s self in one’s closet, by 
a withdrawal from the world, and that, so it would appear, is just 
the mistake so many would-be fiction writers allow themselves. 
They would make the art of the novelist an aristocracy, a thing 
exclusive, to be guarded from contact with the vulgar, humdrum, 
bread-and-butter business of life, to be kept unspotted from the 
world, considering it the result of inspirations, of exaltations, of 
subtleties and — above all things — of refinement, a sort of velvet 
jacket affair, a studio hocus-pocus, a thing loved of women and of 
aesthetes. 

What a folly! Of all the arts it is the most virile; of all the 
arts it will not, will not, will not flourish indoors. Dependent solely 
upon fidelity to life for existence, it must be practiced in the very 


340 Essays on Authorship 

heart’s heart of life, on the street corner, in the market-place, not 
in the studios. God enlighten us ! It is not an affair of women and 
aesthetes, and the Muse of American fiction is no chaste, delicate, 
superfine mademoiselle of delicate poses and “elegant” attitudiniz- 
ings, but a robust, red-armed bonne femme , who rough-shoulders 
her way among men and among affairs, who finds a healthy pleas- 
ure in the jostlings of the mob and a hearty delight in the honest, 
rough-and-tumble, Anglo-Saxon give-and-take knockabout that for 
us means life. Choose her, instead of the sallow, pale-faced statue- 
creature, with the foolish tablets and foolish, upturned eyes, and 
she will lead you as brave a march as ever drum tapped to. Stay 
at her elbow and obey her as she tells you to open your eyes and 
ears and heart, and as you go she will show things wonderful be- 
yond wonder in this great, new, blessed country of ours, will show 
you a life untouched, untried, full of new blood and promise and 
vigor. 

She is a Child of the People, this Muse of our Fiction of the 
future, and the wind of a new country, a new heaven and a new 
earth is in her face and has blown her hair from out the fillets that 
the Old World muse has bound across her brow, so that it is all in 
disarray. The tan of the sun is on her cheeks, and the dust of the 
highway is thick upon her buskin, and the elbowing of many men 
has torn the robe of her, and her hands are hard with the grip of 
many things. She is hail-fellow-well-met with every one she meets, 
unashamed to know the clown and unashamed to face the king, a 
hardy, vigorous girl, with an arm as strong as a man’s and a heart 
as sensitive as a child’s. 

Believe me, she will lead you far from the studios and the 
aesthetes, the velvet jackets and the uncut hair, far from the sexless 
creatures who cultivate their little art of writing as the fancier 
cultivates his orchid. Tramping along, then, with a stride that will 
tax your best paces, she will lead you— if you are humble with her 
and honest with her — straight into a World of Working Men, crude 
of speech, swift of action, strong of passion, straight to the heart 
of a new life, on the borders of a new time, and there and there 
only will you learn to know the stuff of which must come the 
American fiction of the future. 


A PLEA FOR ROMANTIC FICTION 


Let us at the start make a distinction. Observe that one speaks 
of romanticism and not sentimentalism. One claims that the latter 
is as distinct from the former as is that other form of art which is 
called Realism. Romance has been often put upon and overbur- 
dened by being forced to bear the onus of abuse that by right should 
fall to sentiment; but the two should be kept very distinct, for a 
very high and illustrious place will be claimed for romance, while 
sentiment will be handed down the scullery stairs. 

Many people to-day are composing mere sentimentalism, and 
calling it and causing it to be called romance; so with those who 
are too busy to think much upon these subjects, but who none the 
less love honest literature, Romance, too, has fallen into disrepute. 
Consider now the cut-and-thrust stories. They are all labeled Ro- 
mances, and it is very easy to get the impression that Romance 
must be an affair of cloaks and daggers, or moonlight and golden 
hair. But this is not so at all. The true Romance is a more serious 
business than this. It is not merely a conjurer’s trick-box full of 
flimsy quackeries, tinsel and claptraps, meant only to amuse, and 
relying upon deception to do even that. Is it not something better 
than this? Can we not see in it an instrument, keen, finely tem- 
pered, flawless — an instrument with which we may go straight 
through the clothes and tissues and wrappings of flesh down deep 
into the red, living heart of things? 

Is all this too subtle, too merely speculative and intrinsic, too 
precieuse and nice and “literary”? Devoutly one hopes the con- 
trary. So much is made of so-called Romanticism in present-day 
fiction that the subject seems worthy of discussion, and a protest 
against the misuse of a really noble and honest formula of literature 
appears to be timely — misuse, that is, in the sense of limited use. 
Let us suppose for the moment that a romance can be made out of 
a cut-and-thrust business. Good Heavens, are there no other 
things that are romantic, even in this — falsely, falsely called — hum- 
drum world of to-day? Why should it be that so soon as the 
novelist addresses himself — seriously — to the consideration of con- 

(341) 


342 Essays on Authorship 

temporary life he must abandon Romance and take up the harsh, 
loveless, colorless, blunt tool called Realism? 

Now, let us understand at once what is meant by Romance and 
what by Realism. Romance, I take it, is the kind of fiction that 
takes cognizance of variations from the type of normal life. Real- 
ism is the kind of fiction that confines itself to the type of normal 
life. According to this definition, then, Romance may even treat 
of the sordid, the unlovely — as, for instance, the novels of M. Zola. 
(Zola has been dubbed a Realist, but he is, on the contrary, the 
very head of the Romanticists.) Also, Realism, used as it some- 
times is as a term of reproach, need not be in the remotest sense or 
degree offensive, but on the other hand respectable as a church and 
proper as a deacon — as, for instance, the novels of Mr. Howells. 

The reason why one claims so much for Romance, and quarrels 
so pointedly with Realism, is that Realism stultifies itself. It notes 
only the surface of things. For it, Beauty is not even skin deep, 
but only a geometrical plane, without dimensions and depth, a mere 
outside. Realism is very excellent so far as it goes, but it goes no 
further than the Realist himself can actually see, or actually hear. 
Realism is minute; it is the drama of a broken teacup, the tragedy 
of a walk down the block, the excitement of an afternoon call, the 
adventure of an invitation to dinner. It is the visit to my neighbor’s 
house, a formal visit, from which I may draw no conclusions. I 
see my neighbor and his friends — very, oh, such very! probable 
people — and that is all. Realism bows upon the doormat and goes 
away and says to me, as we link arms on the sidewalk: “That is 
life.” And I say it is not. It is not, as you would very well see if 
you took Romance with you to call upon your neighbor. 

Lately you have been taking Romance a weary journey across 
the water — ages and the flood of years — and haling her into the 
fuzzy, musty, worm-eaten, moth-riddled, rust-corroded “Grandes 
Salles” of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and she has found 
the drama of a bygone age for you there. But would you take her 
across the street to your neighbor’s front parlor (with the bisque 
fisher-boy on the mantel and the photograph of Niagara Falls on 
glass hanging in the front window) ; would you introduce her there? 
Not you. Would you take a walk with her on Fifth Avenue, or 
Beacon Street, or Michigan Avenue? No, indeed. Would you 
choose her for a companion of a morning spent in Wall Street, or 
an afternoon in the Waldorf-Astoria? You just guess you would 
not. 


A Plea for Romantic Fiction 


343 


She would be out of place, you say — inappropriate. She might 
be awkward in my neighbor's front parlor, and knock over 

the little bisque fisher-boy. Well, she might. If she did, you 

might find underneath the base of the statuette, hidden away, tucked 
away — what? God knows. But something that would be a com- 
plete revelation of my neighbor's secretest life. 

So you think Romance would stop in the front parlor and dis- 
cuss medicated flannels and mineral waters with the ladies! Not 
for more than five minutes. She would be off upstairs with you, 

prying, peeping, peering into the closets of the bedroom, into the 

nursery, into the sitting-room; yes, and into that little iron box 
screwed to the lower shelf of the closet in the library ; and into those 
compartments and pigeon-holes of the secretaire in the study. She 
would find a heartache (maybe) between the pillows of the mis- 
tress's bed, and a memory carefully secreted in the master’s 
deed-box. She would come upon a great hope amid the books and 
papers of the study-table of the young man's room, and — perhaps — 
who knows? — an affair, or, great Heavens, an intrigue, in the 
scented ribbons and gloves and hairpins of the young lady's bureau. 
And she would pick here a little and there a little, making up a bag 
of hopes and fears and a package of joys and sorrows — great ones, 
mind you — and then come down to the front door, and, stepping 
out into the street, hand you the bags and package and say to you — 
“That is Life !" ' ' ' ' V 

Romance does very well in the castles of the Middle Ages and 
the Renaissance chateaux, and she has the entree there and is very 
well received. That is all well and good. But let us protest against 
limiting her to such places and such times. You will find her, I 
grant you, in the chatelaine’s chamber and the dungeon of the 
man-at-arms; but, if you choose to look for her, you will find her 
equally at home in the brownstone house on the corner and in the 
office building downtown. And this very day, in this very hour, 
she is sitting among the rags and wretchedness, the dirt and despair 
of the tenements of the East Side of New York. 

“What?” I hear you say, “look for Romance — the lady of the 
silken robes and golden crown, our beautiful, chaste maiden of soft 
voice and gentle eyes — look for her among the vicious ruffians, 
male and female, of Allen Street and Mulberry Bend?” I tell you 
she is there, and to your shame be it said you will not know her in , 
those surroundings. You, the aristocrats, who demand the fine I 
linen and the purple in your fiction ; you, the sensitive, the delicate, 


344 Essays on Authorship 

who will associate with your Romance only so long as she wears a 
silken gown. You will not follow her to the slums, for you believe 
that Romance should only amuse and entertain you, singing you 
sweet songs and touching the harp of silver strings with rosy-tipped 
fingers. If haply she should call to you from the squalor of a dive, 
or the awful degradation of a disorderly house, crying: “Look! 
listen! This, too, is life. These, too, are my children! Look at 
them, know them and, knowing, help !” Should she call thus you 
would stop your ears ; you would avert your eyes and you 
would answer, “Come from there, Romance. Your place is not 
there!” And you would make of her a harlequin, a tumbler, a 
sword-dancer, when, as a matter of fact, she should be by right 
divine a teacher sent from God. 

She will not often wear the robe of silk, the golden crown, the 
jeweled shoon; will not always sweep the silver harp. An iron 
note is hers if so she choose, and coarse garments, and stained 
hands; and, meeting her thus, it is for you to know her as she 
passes — know her for the same young queen of the blue mantle and 
lilies. She can teach you if you will be humble to learn — teach you 
by showing. God help you if at last you take from Romance her 
mission of teaching ; if you do not believe that she has a purpose — 
a nobler purpose and a mightier than mere amusement, mere enter- 
tainment. Let Realism do the entertainment with its meticulous 
presentation of teacups, rag carpets, wall-paper and haircloth 
sofas, stopping with these, going no deeper than it sees, choosing 
the ordinary, the untroubled, the commonplace. 

But to Romance belongs the wide world for range, and the 
unplumbed depths of the human heart, and the mystery of sex, and 
the problems of life, and the black, unsearched penetralia of the 
soul of man. You, the indolent, must not always be amused. 
What matter the silken clothes, what matter the prince’s houses? 
Romance, too, is a teacher, and if — throwing aside the purple — 
she wears the camel’s-hair and feeds upon the locusts, it is to cry 
aloud unto the people, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord ; make 
straight his path.” 


A PROBLEM IN FICTION 


So many people — writers more especially — claim stridently and 
with a deal of gesturing that because a thing has happened it is 
therefore true. They have written a story, let us say, and they 
bring it to you to criticise. You lay your finger upon a certain 
passage and say “Not true to life/’ The author turns on you and 
then annihilates you — in his own mind — with the words, “But it 
actually happened.” Of course, then, it must be true. On the con- 
trary, it is accurate only. 

For the assumption is, that truth is a higher power of accuracy 
■ — that the true thing includes the accurate; and, assuming this, the 
authors of novels — that are not successful — suppose that if they are 
accurate, if they tell the thing just as they saw it, that they are 
truthful. It is not difficult to show that a man may be as accurate as 
the spectroscope and yet lie like a Chinese diplomat. As, for in- 
stance: Let us suppose you have never seen a sheep, never heard 
of sheep, don’t know sheep from shavings. It devolves upon me to 
enlighten your ignorance. I go out into the field and select from 
the flock a black sheep, bring it before you, and, with the animal 
there under our eyes, describe it in detail, faithfully, omitting noth- 
ing, falsifying nothing, exaggerating nothing. I am painfully ac- 
curate. But you go away with the untrue conviction that all sheep 
are black ! I have been accurate, but I have not been true. 

So it is with very, very many novels, written with all earnest- 
ness and seriousness. Every incident has happened in real life, 
and because it is picturesque, because it is romantic, because, in a 
word, it is like some other novel, it is seized upon at once, and serves 
as the nucleus of a tale. Then, because this tale fails of success, be- 
cause it fails to impress, the author blames the public, not himself. 
He thinks he has gone to life for his material, and so must be 
original, new, and true. It is not so. Life itself is not always true ; 
strange as it may seem, you may be able to say that life is not always 
true to life — from the point of view of the artist. It happened once 
that it was my unfortunate duty to tell a certain man of the violent 

( 345 ) 


346 Essays on Authorship 

death of his only brother, whom he had left well and happy blit an 
hour before. This is how he took it : He threw up both hands and 
staggered back, precisely as they do in melodrama, exclaiming all 
in a breath: “Oh, my God! This is terrible! What will mother 
say?” You may say what you please, this man was not true to life. 
From the point of view of the teller of tales he was theatrical, false, 
untrue, and though the incident was an actual fact and though the 
emotion was real, it had no value as “material,” and no fiction writer 
in his senses would have thought of using it in his story. 

Naturally enough it will be asked what, then, is the standard. 
How shall the writer guide himself in the treatment of a pivotal, 
critical scene, or how shall the reader judge whether or no he is 
true? Perhaps, after all, the word “seem,” and not the word “true,” 
is the most important. Of course no good novelist, no good artist, 
can represent life as it actually is. Nobody can, for nobody knows. 
Who is to say what life actually is? It seems easy — easy for us 
who have it and live in it and see it and hear it and feel it every 
millionth part of every second of the time. I say that life is actu- 
ally this or that, and you say it is something else, and number three 
says “Lo! here,” and number four says “Lo! there.” Not even 
science is going to help you ; no two photographs, even, will convey 
just the same impression of the same actuality; and here we are 
dealing not with science, but with art, that instantly involves the 
personality of the artist and all that that means. Even the same 
artist will not see the same thing twice exactly alike. His person- 
ality is one thing to-day and another thing to-morrow — is one 
thing before dinner and another thing after it. How, then, to deter- 
mine what life actually is? 

The point is just this. In the fine arts we do not care one little 
bit about what life actually is, but what it looks like to an interesting, 
impressionable man, and if he tells history or paints his picture so 
that the majority of intelligent people will say, “Yes, that must have 
been just about what would have happened under these circum- 
stances,” he is true. His accuracy cuts no figure at all. He need 
not be accurate if he does not choose to be. If he sees fit to be 
inaccurate in order to make his point — so only his point be the con- 
veying of a truthful impression — that is his affair. We have noth- 
ing to do with that. Consider the study of a French cuirassier by 
Detaille; where the sunlight strikes the brown coat of the horse, 
you will see, if you look close, a mere smear of blue — light blue. 
This is inaccurate. The horse is not blue, nor has he any blue spots. 


A Problem in Fiction 


347 

Stand at the proper distance and the blue smear resolves itself in 
the glossy reflection of the sun, and the effect is true. 

And in fiction: Take the fine scene in “Ivanhoe,” where Rebecca, 
looking from the window, describes the assault upon the outer walls 
of the castle to the wounded knight lying on the floor in the room 
behind her. If you stop and think, you will see that Rebecca never 
could have found such elaborate language under the stress of so 
great excitement — those cleverly managed little climaxes in each 
phrase, building up to the great climax of the paragraph, all the 
play of rhetoric, all the nice chain and adjustment of adjectives; 
she could not possibly have done it. Neither you nor I, nor any of 
us, with all the thought and time and labor at our command, "could 
have ever written the passage. But is it not admirably true — 
true as the truth itself? It is not accurate: it is grossly, ludicrously 
inaccurate ; but the fire and leap and vigor of it ; there is where the 
truth is. Scott wanted you to get an impression of that assault on 
the barbican, and you do get it. You can hear those axes on the 
outer gate as plainly as Rebecca could; you can see the ladders go 
up, can hear them splinter, can see and feel and know all the rush 
and trample and smashing of that fine fight, with the Fetterlock 
Knight always to the fore, as no merely accurate description — accu- 
rate to five points of decimals — could ever present it. 

So that one must remember the distinction, and claim no more 
for accuracy than it deserves — and that's but little. Anybody can 
be accurate — the man with the foot-rule is that. Accuracy is the 
attainment of small minds, the achievement of the commonplace, a 
mere machine-made thing that comes with niggardly research and 
ciphering and mensuration and the multiplication table, good in its 
place, so only the place is very small. In fiction it can under certain 
circumstances be dispensed with altogether. It is not a thing to be 
striven for. To be true is the all-important business, and, once 
attaining that, “all other things shall be added unto you.” Paint the 
horse pea-green if it suits your purpose; fill the mouth of Rebecca 
with gasconades and rodomontades interminable : these things do not 
matter. It is truth that matters, and the point is whether the daubs 
of pea-green will look like horseflesh and the mouth-filling words 
create the impression of actual battle. 


WHY WOMEN SHOULD WRITE THE BEST 

NOVELS 


It is rather curious upon reflection and upon looking over the 
rank and file of achievement during the period of recorded history, 
to observe that of all the occupations at first exclusively followed by 
men, that of writing has been — in all civilizations and among all 
people — one of the very first to be successfully — mark the qualifica- 
tion of the adverb — to be successfully invaded by women. We hear 
of women who write poetry long before we hear of women who 
paint pictures or perform upon musical instruments or achieve dis- 
tinction upon the stage. 

It would seem as if, of all the arts, that of writing is the one 
to which women turn the quickest. Great success in the sciences or 
in mercantile pursuits is, of course, out of the question, so that — 
as at the first — it may be said, speaking largely, that of all the mascu- 
line occupations, that of writing is the first to be adopted by women. 

If it is the first it must be because it is the easiest. Now to go 
very far back to the earliest beginnings, all occupations, whether 
artistic or otherwise, were the prerogative of the male ; considering 
this fact, I say, does it not follow, or would not the inference be 
strong, that — given an equal start — women would write more read- 
ily than men, would do so because they could do so ; that writing is 
a feminine — not accomplishment merely — but gift? 

So that the whole matter leads up to the point one wishes to 
make, namely, that here, in our present day and time, it should be 
easier for women to write well than for men. And as writing to- 
day means the writing of fiction, we arrive, somewhat deviously and 
perhaps — after jumping many gaps and weak spots en route — a lit- 
tle lamely, at the very last result of all, which is this : Women should 
be able to write better novels than men. 

But under modern conditions there are many more reasons for 
this success of women in fiction than merely a natural inherent gift 
of expression. 

One great reason is leisure. The average man, who must work 
for a living, has no time to write novels, much less to get into that 

( 348 ) 


Why Women Should Write the Best Novels 349 

frame of mind or to assume that mental attitude by means of which 
he is able to see possibilities for fictitious narrative in the life around 
him. But, as yet, few women (compared with the armies of male 
workers) have to work for a living, and it is an unusual state of 
affairs in which the average woman of moderate circumstances could 
not, if she would, take from three to four hours a day from her 
household duties to devote to any occupation she deemed desirable. 

Another reason is found, one believes, in the nature of women’s 
education. From almost the very first the young man studies with 
an eye to business or to a profession. In many State colleges nowa- 
days all literary courses except the most elementary — which, in- 
deed, have no place in collegiate curriculums — are optional. But 
what girls’ seminary does not prescribe the study of literature 
through all its three or four years, making of this study a matter 
of all importance? And while the courses of literature do not, by 
any manner of means, make a novelist, they familiarize the student 
with style and the means by which words are put together. The 
more one reads the easier one writes. 

Then, too (though this reason lies not so much in modern condi- 
tions as in basic principles), there is the matter of temperament. 
The average man is a rectangular, square-cut, matter-of-fact, sober- 
minded animal who does not receive impressions easily, who is not 
troubled with emotions and has no overmastering desire to com- 
municate his sensations to anybody. But the average woman is 
just the reverse of all these. She is impressionable, emotional, and 
communicative. And impressionableness, emotionality, and com- 
municativeness are three very important qualities of mind that make 
for novel writing. 

The modern woman, then, in a greater degree than her contem- 
poraneous male, has the leisure for novel writing, has the educa- 
tion and has the temperament. She should be able to write better 
novels, and as a matter of fact she does not. It is, of course, a 
conceded fact that there have been more great men novelists than 
women novelists, and that to-day the producers of the best fiction 
are men and not women. There are probably more women trying 
to write novels than there are men, but for all this it must be ad- 
mitted that the ranks of the “arrived” are recruited from the razor 
contingent. 

Why, then, with such a long start and with so many advantages 
of temperament, opportunity, and training, should it be that women 
do not write better novels than men ? 


350 Essays on Authorship 

One believes that the answer is found in the fact that life is more 
important than literature, and in the wise, wise, old, old adage that 
experience is the best teacher. Of all the difficult things that enter 
into the learning of a most difficult profession, the most difficult of 
all for the intended novelist to acquire is the fact that life is better 
than literature. The amateur will say this with conviction, will 
preach it in public and practice the exact reverse in private. But 
it still remains true that all the temperament, all the sensitiveness 
to impressions, all the education in the world will not help one 
little, little bit in the writing of the novel if life itself, the crude, the 
raw, the vulgar, if you will, is not studied. An hour’s experience 
is worth ten years of study — of reading other people’s books. But 
this fact is ignored, and the future writer of what it is hoped will 
be the great novel of his day and age studies the thoughts and 
products of some other writer, of some other great novel, of some 
other day and age, in the hope that thereby much may be learned. 
And much will be learned — very much, indeed — of the methods of 
construction ; and if the tyro only has wits enough to study the great 
man’s formula, well and good. But the fascination of a great story- 
writer — especially upon the young, untried little story-writer — is 
strong, and before the latter is well aware he is taking from the big 
man that which he has no right to take. He is taking his code of 
ethics, his view of life, his personality, even to the very incidents 
and episodes of his story. He is studying literature and not life. 

If he had gone direct to life itself, all would have been different. 
He would have developed in his own code, his own personality, and 
he would have found incidents and episodes that were new — yes, 
and strikingly forceful, better than any he could have imagined or 
stolen, and which were all his own. In the end, if the gods gave 
him long life and a faculty of application, he would have evolved 
into something of a writer of fiction. 

All this digression is to try to state the importance of actual 
life and actual experience, and it bears upon the subject m hand in 
this, that women who have all the other qualifications of good novel- 
ists are, because of nature and character that invariably goes witlf 
these qualifications, shut away from the study of, and the associa- 
tion with, the most important thing of all for them — real life. 
Even making allowances for the emancipation of the New Woman, 
the majority of women still lead, in comparison with men, secluded 
lives. The woman who is impressionable is by reason of this very 
thing sensitive (indeed, sensitiveness and impressionableness mean 


Why Women Should Write the Best Novels 351 

almost the same thing), and it is inconceivably hard for the sensi- 
tive woman to force herself into the midst of that great, grim com- 
plication of men’s doings that we call life. And even admitting 
that she finds in herself the courage to do this, she lacks the knowl- 
edge to use knowledge thus gained. The faculty of selection comes 
even to men only after many years of experience. 

So much for causes exterior to herself, and it is well to admit at 
once that the exterior causes are by far the most potent and the 
most important; but there are perhaps causes to be found in the 
make-up of the woman herself which keep her from success in fic- 
tion. Is it not a fact that protracted labor of the mind tells upon 
a woman quicker than upon a man? Be it understood that no dis- 
paragement, no invidious comparison, is intended. Indeed, it is 
quite possible that her speedier mental fatigue is due to the fact 
that the woman possesses the more highly specialized organ. 

A man may grind on steadily for an almost indefinite period, 
when a woman at the same task would begin, after a certain point, 
to “feel her nerves,” to chafe, to fret, to try to do too much, to polish 
too highly, to develop more perfectly. Then come fatigue, harassing 
doubts, more nerves, a touch of hysteria occasionally, exhaustion, 
and in the end complete discouragement and a final abandonment of 
the enterprise : and who shall say how many good, even great, novels 
have remained half written, to be burned in the end, because their 
women authors mistook lack of physical strength for lack of genuine 
ability ? 


SIMPLICITY IN ART 


Once upon a time I had occasion to buy so uninteresting a thing 
as a silver soup-ladle. The salesman at the silversmith’s was oblig- 
ing and for my inspection brought forth quite an array of ladles. But 
my purse was flaccid, anaemic, and I must pick and choose with all 
the discrimination in the world. I wanted to make a brave showing 
with my gift — to get a great deal for my money. I went through a 
world of soup-ladles — ladles with gilded bowls, with embossed 
handles, with chased arabesques, but there were none to my taste. 
“Or perhaps,” says the salesman, “you would care to look at some- 
thing like this,” and he brought out a ladle that was as plain and 
as unadorned as the unclouded sky — and about as beautiful. Of 
all the others this was the most to my liking. But the price ! ah, that 
anaemic purse ; and I must put it from me ! It was nearly double the 
cost of any of the rest. And when I asked why, the salesman said : 

“You see, in this highly ornamental ware the flaws of the mate- 
rial don’t show, and you can cover up a blow-hole or the like by 
wreaths and beading. But this plain ware has got to be the very 
best. Every defect is apparent.” 

And there, if you please, is a conclusive comment upon the 
whole business — a final basis of comparison of all things, whether 
commercial or artistic ; the bare dignity of the unadorned that may 
stand before the world all unshamed, panoplied rather than 
clothed in the consciousness of perfection. We of this latter 
day, we painters and poets and writers — artists — must labor with 
all the wits of us, all the strength of us, and with all that we have 
of ingenuity and perseverance to attain simplicity. But it has not 
always been so. At the very earlist, men — forgotten, ordinary men 
— were born with an easy, unblurred vision that to-day we would 
hail as marvelous genius. Suppose, for instance, the New Testa- 
ment was all unwritten and one of us were called upon to tell the 
world that Christ was born, to tell of how he had seen Him, that 
this was the Messiah. How the adjectives would marshal upon the 
page, how the exclamatory phrases would cry out, how we would 

(w) 


Simplicity in Art 353 

elaborate and elaborate, and how our rhetoric would flare and blazon 
till — so we should imagine — the ear would ring and the very eye 
would be dazzled ; and even then we would believe that our words 
were all so few and feeble. It is beyond words, we should vocif- 
erate. So it would be. That is very true — words of ours. Can 
you not see how we should dramatize it? We would make a point 
of the transcendent stillness of the hour, of the deep blue of the 
Judean midnight, of the lip-lapping of Galilee, the murmur of Jor- 
dan, the peacefulness of sleeping Jerusalem. Then the stars, the 
descent of the angel, the shepherds — #11 the accessories. And our 
narrative would be as commensurate with the subject as the flippant 
smartness of a “bright” reporter in the Sistine chapel. We would 
be striving to cover up our innate incompetence, our impotence to do 
justice to the mighty theme by elaborateness of design and ara- 
besque intricacy of rhetoric. 

But on the other hand — listen : 

“The days were accomplished that she should be delivered, and 
she brought forth her first-born son and wrapped him in swaddling 
clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for 
them in the inn.” 

Simplicity could go no further. Absolutely not one word unes- 
sential, not a single adjective that is not merely descriptive. The 
whole matter stated with the terseness of a military report, and yet 
— there is the epic, the world epic, beautiful, majestic, incomparably 
dignified, and no ready writer, no Milton nor Shakespeare, with all 
the wealth of their vocabularies, with all the resources of their 
genius, with all their power of simile or metaphor, their pomp of elo- 
quence or their royal pageantry of hexameters, could produce the 
effect contained in these two simple declarative sentences. 

The mistake that we little people are so prone to make is this : % 
that the more intense the emotional quality of the scene described, ! 
the more “vivid,” the more exalted, the more richly colored we sup- 1 
pose should be the language. 

When the crisis of the tale is reached there is where we like the, 
author to spread himself, to show the effectiveness of his treatment. 
But if we would only pause to take a moment’s thought we must 
surely see that the simplest, even the barest statement of fact is not 
only all-sufficient, but all-appropriate. 

Elaborate phrase, rhetoric, the intimacy of metaphor and alle- 
gory and simile is forgivable for the unimportant episodes where 
the interest of the narrative is languid; where we are willing to 


354 Essays on Authorship 

watch the author’s ingenuity in the matter of scrolls and fretwork 
and mosaics — rococo work. But when the catastrophe comes, when 
the narrative swings clear upon its pivot and we are lifted with it 
from out the world of our surroundings, we want to forget the 
author. We want no adjectives to blur our substantives. The sub- 
stantives may now speak for themselves. We want no metaphor, 
no simile to make clear the matter. If at this moment of drama 
and intensity the matter is not of itself pre-eminently clear no ver- 
biage, however ingenious, will clarify it. Heighten the effect. Does 
exclamation and heroics on the part of the bystanders ever make 
the curbstone drama more poignant? Who would care to see Ni- 
agara through colored fire and calcium lights? 

The simple treatment, whether of a piece of silversmith work or 
of a momentous religious epic, is always the most difficult of all. It 
demands more of the artist. The unskilful story-teller as often as 
not tells the story to himself as well as to his hearers as he goes 
along. Not sure of exactly how he is to reach the end, not sure even 
of the end itself, he must feel his way from incident to incident, from 
page to page, fumbling, using many words, repeating himself. To 
hide the confusion there is one resource — elaboration, exaggerated 
outline, violent color, till at last the unstable outline disappears 
under the accumulation, and the reader is to be so dazzled with the 
wit of the dialogue, the smartness of the repartee, the felicity of the 
diction, that he will not see the gaps and lapses in the structure 
itself — just as the “nobby” drummer wears a wide and showy scarf to 
conceal a soiled shirt-bosom. 

But in the master-works of narrative there is none of this sham- 
ming, no shoddyism, no humbug. There is little more than bare out- 
line, but in the care with which it is drawn, how much thought, 
what infinite pains go to the making of each stroke, so that when it 
is made it falls just at the right place and exactly in its right sequence. 
This attained, what need is there for more? Comment is superflu- 
ous. If the author make the scene appear terrible to the reader he 
need not say in himself or in the mouth of some protagonist, “It is 
terrible !” If the picture is pathetic so that he who reads must weep, 
how superfluous, how intrusive should the author exclaim, “It was 
pitiful to the point of tears.” If beautiful, we do not want him to 
tell us so. We want him to make it beautiful and our own appre- 
ciation will supply the adjectives. 

Beauty, the ultimate philosophical beauty, is not a thing of 
elaboration, but on the contrary of an almost barren nudity: a jewel 


Simplicity in Art 355 

may be an exquisite gem, a woman may have a beautiful arm, but 
the bracelet does not make the arm more beautiful, nor the arm the 
bracelet. One must admire them separately, and the moment that 
the jewel ceases to have a value or a reason upon the arm it is better 
in the case, where it may enjoy an undivided attention. 

But after so many hundreds of years of art and artists, of civil- 
ization and progress, we have got so far away from the sane old 
homely uncomplex way of looking out at the world that the- simple 
things no longer charm, and the simple declarative sentence, straight- 
forward, plain, seems flat to our intellectual palate — flat and taste- 
less and crude. 

What we would now call simple our forebears would look upon as 
a farrago of gimcrackery, and all our art — the art of the better- 
minded of us — is only a striving to get back to the unblurred, direct 
simplicity of those writers who could see that the Wonderful, the 
Counselor, the. mighty God, the Prince of Peace, could be laid in a 
manger and yet be the Saviour of the world. 

It is this same spirit, this disdaining of simplicity that has so 
warped and inflated The First Story, making of it a pomp, an affair 
of gold-embroidered vestments and costly choirs, of marbles, of 
jeweled windows and of incense, unable to find the thrill as formerly 
in the plain and humble stable, and the brown-haired, grave-eyed 
peasant girl, with her little baby; unable to see the beauty in the 
crumbling mud walls, the low-ceiled interior, where the only incense 
was the sweet smell of the cow’s breath, the only vestments the 
swaddling clothes, rough, coarse-fibred, from the hand-looms of 
Nazareth, the only pomp the scanty gifts of three old men, and the 
only chanting the crooning of a young mother holding her first- 
born babe upon her breast. 


SALT AND SINCERITY 


I 

If the signs of the times may be read aright, and the future fore- 
casted, the volume of short stories is in a fair way of becoming a 
“rare book.” Fewer and fewer of this kind of literature are pub- 
lished every year, and only within the last week one of the fore- 
most of the New York publishers has said that, so far as the ma- 
terial success was concerned, he would prefer to undertake a book 
of poems rather than a book of stories. Also he explains why. And 
this is the interesting thing. One has always been puzzled to ac- 
count for this lapse from a former popularity of a style of fiction 
certainly legitimate and incontestably entertaining. The publisher 
in question cites the cheap magazines — the monthlies and weeklies — 
as the inimical factors. The people go to them for their short 
stories, not to the cloth-bound volumes for sale at a dollar or a 
dollar and a half. Why not, if the cheap magazines give “just as 
good” ? Often, too, they give the very same stories which, later, 
are republished in book form. As the case stands now, any fairly 
diligent reader of two or three of the more important monthlies 
and weeklies may anticipate the contents of the entire volume, and 
very naturally he can not be expected to pay a dollar for something 
he already has. 

Or even suppose — as is now generally demanded by the pub- 
lisher — the author adds to the forthcoming collection certain hith- 
erto unpublished stories. Even this does not tempt the buyer. 
Turning over the leaves at the bookseller’s, he sees two, three, five, 
half a dozen familiar titles. “Come,” says he, “I have read three- 
fourths of this book already. I have no use for it.” 

It is quite possible that this state of affairs will produce im- 
portant results. It is yet, perhaps, too soon to say, but it is not 
outside the range of the probable that, in America at least, it will, 
in time to come, engender a decay in the quality of the short story. 
It may be urged that the high prices paid by periodicals to the 
important short-story writers — the best men — will still act as a 
stimulus to production. But this does not follow by any means. 

( 356 ) 


357 


Salt and Sincerity 

Authors are queer cattle. They do not always work for money, 
but sometimes for a permanent place in the eyes of the world. 
Books give them this— not fugitive short stories published here and 
there, and at irregular intervals. Reputations that have been made 
by short stories published in periodicals may be counted upon the 
fingers of one hand. The “life of a novel” — to use a trade term — 
is to a certain extent indeterminable. The life of a short story, be 
it never so excellent, is prolonged only till the next issue of the 
periodical in which it has appeared. If the periodical is a weekly 
it will last a week, if a monthly a month — and not a day more. If 
very good, it will create a demand for another short story by the 
same author, but that one particular contribution, the original one, 
is irretrievably and hopelessly dead. 

If the author is in literature “for his own pocket every time,” 
he is generally willing to accept the place of a short-story writer. 
If he is one of the “best men,” working for a “permanent place,” 
he will turn his attention and time, his best efforts, to the writing 
of novels, reverting to the short story only when necessary for the 
sake of boiling the Pot and chasing the Wolf. He will abandon 
the field to the inferior men, or enter it only to dispose of “copy” 
which does not represent him at his best. And, as a result, the 
quality of the short story will decline more and more. 

So, “taking one consideration with another,” it may be ap- 
propriate to inquire if it is not possible that the American short 
story is liable to decline in quality and standard of excellence. 

And now comes again this question addressed to certain au- 
thors, “Which book do you consider your best?” and a very indus- 
trious and painstaking person is giving the answer to the world. 

To what end it is difficult to see. Who cares which of the 
“Waverleys” Sir Walter thought his best? or which of the Rougon- 
Maquart M. Zola favors the most? The author’s point of view is 
very different from yours — the reader’s. Which one do you think 
the best? That’s the point. Do you not see that in the author’s 
opinion the novel he is working on at the moment, or which is in 
press and about to appear — in fine, the last one written — is for a very 
long time the best he has done? He would be a very poor kind of 
novelist if he did not think that. 

And even in retrospect his opinion as to “his best book” is not 
necessarily final. For he will see good points in “unsuccessful” novels 
that the public and critics have never and will never discover; and 
also defects in what the world considers his masterpiece that for him 


358 Essays on Authorship 

spoil the entire story. His best novel is, as was said, the last he 
has written, or— and this more especially— the one he is going to 
write. For to a certain extent this is true of every author, whether 
fiction writer or not. Though he very often does better than he 
thinks he can , he never does so well as he knows he might. 

His best book is the one that he never quite succeeds in getting 
hold of firmly enough to commit to paper. It is always just beyond 
him. Next year he is going to think it out, or the next after that, 
and instead he compromises on something else, and his chief 
d’ oeuvre is always a little ahead of him. If this, too, were not so, 
he would be a poor kind of writer. So that it seems to me the 
most truthful answer to the question, “What is your best book ? ’ 
would be, “The one I shall never write.” 

Another ideal that such of the “people who imagine a vain thing” 
have long been pursuing is an English Academy of letters, and now 
that “the British Acaderhy for the promotion of Historical, Phil- 
osophical and Philological studies” has been proposed, the old dis- 
cussion is revived, and especially in England there is talk of a 
British Academy, something on the same lines as the Academie 
Frangaise, which shall tend to promote and reward particularly the 
production of good fiction. In a word, it would be a distinction re- 
served only for the worthy, a charmed circle that would open only 
to the elite upon the vote of those already admitted. The prop- 
osition strikes one as pre-eminently ridiculous. Literature is of 
all arts the most democratic; it is of, by and for the people in a 
fuller measure than even government itself. And one makes the 
assertion without forgetting that fine mouth-filling phrase, the 
“aristocracy of letters.” The survival of the fittest is as good in 
the evolution of our literature as of our bodies, and the best “acad- 
emy” for the writers of the United States is, after all, and in the 
last analysis, to be found in the judgment of the people, exercised 
throughout the lapse of a considerable time. For, give the people 
time enough, and they will always decide justly. 

It was in connection with this talk about an “Academy” that Mr. 
Hall Caine made the remark that “no academic study of a thing 
so variable, emotional and independent as the imaginative writer’s 
art could be anything but mischievous.” One is inclined to take 
exception to the statement. Why should the academic study of the 
principles of writing fiction be mischievous? Is it not possible to 
codify in some way the art of construction of novels so that they 
may be studied to advantage? This has, of course, never been 


Salt and Sincerity 359 

done. But one believes that, if managed carefully and with a 
proper disregard of “set forms” and hampering conventions, it 
would be possible to start and maintain a school of fiction-writing 
in the most liberal sense of the word “school.” Why should it 
be any more absurd than the painting schools and music schools? 
Is the art of music, say, any less variable, less emotional, less in- 
dependent, less imaginative, than the fiction writer’s? Heretical as 
the assertion may appear, one is thoroughly convinced that the art 
of novel writing (up to a certain point, bien entendu) can be ac- 
quired by instruction just as readily and with results just as satis- 
factory and practical as the arts of painting, sculpture, music, and 
the like. The art of fiction is, in general, based upon four qualities 
of mind : observation, imagination, invention and sympathy. Cer- 
tainly the first two are “acquired characters.” Kindergarten chil- 
dren the world over are acquiring them every day. Invention is 
immensely stimulated by observation and imagination, while sym- 
pathy is so universally a fundamental quality with all sorts and 
conditions of men and women — especially the latter — that it needs 
but little cultivation. Why, then, would it be impossible for a 
few of our older, more seriously minded novelists to launch a 
School of Instruction in the Art of Composition — just as Bouguereau, 
Lefevre, Boulanger and Tony Robert Fleury founded Julien’s in 
Paris ? 

At present the stimulus to, and even the manner of, production 
of very much of American fiction is in the hands of the publishers. 
No one not intimately associated with any one of the larger, more 
important “houses” can have any idea of the influence of the pub- 
lisher upon latter-day fiction. More novels are written — practically 
— to order than the public has any notion of. The publisher 
again and again picks out the man (one speaks, of course, of the 
younger generation), suggests the theme, and exercises, in a sense, 
all the functions of instructor during the period of composition. 
In the matter of this “picking out of the man” it is rather curious 
to note a very radical change that has come about in the last five 
years. Time was when the publisher waited for the unknown 
writer to come to him with his manuscript. But of late the Un- 
known has so frequently developed, under exploitation and by 
direct solicitation of the publisher, into a “money-making propo- 
sition” of such formidable proportions that there is hardly a pub- 
lishing house that does not now hunt him out with all the resources 
at its command. Certain fields are worked with the thorough- 


360 Essays on Authorship 

ness, almost, of a political canvass, and if a given State — as, for 
instance, Indiana — has suddenly evolved into a region of great lit- 
erary activity, it is open to suspicion that it is not because there 
is any inherent literary quality in the people of the place greater 
than in other States, but that certain firms of publishers are “work- 
ing the ground.” 

It might not have been altogether out of place if upon the 
Victor Hugo monument which has just been unveiled in Paris 
there had been inscribed this, one of the most important of the 
great Frenchman’s maxims : 

“Les livres n’ont jamais faites du mal;” 

and I think that in the last analysis, this is the most fitting answer 
to Mr. Carnegie, who, in his address before the Authors Club, 
put himself on record as willing to exclude from the libraries he 
is founding all books not three years old. No doubt bad books have 
a bad influence, but bad books are certainly better than no books 
at all. For one must remember that the worst books are not printed 
— the really tawdry, really pernicious, really evil books. These are 
throttled in manuscript by the publishers, who must be in a sense 
public censors. No book, be assured, goes to press but that there 
is — oh, hidden away like a grain of mustard — some bit, some 
modicum, some tiny kernel of good in it. Perhaps it is not that 
seed of goodness that the cultured, the fastidious care much about. 
Perhaps the discriminating would call it a platitude. But one is 
willing to believe that somewhere, somehow, this atom of real worth 
makes itself felt — and that’s a beginning. It will create after a 
while a taste for reading. And a taste for reading is a more im- 
portant factor in a nation’s literary life than the birth of a second 
Shakespeare. 

It is the people, after all, who “make a literature.” If they 
read, the few, the “illuminati,” will write. But first must come 
the demand — come from the people, the Plain People, the condemned 
bourgeoisie. The select circles of the elite, the “studio” hangers- 
on, the refined, will never, never, clamor they never so loudly, 
toil they never so painfully, produce the Great Writer. The demand 
which he is to supply comes from the Plain People — from the 
masses, and not from the classes. There is more significance as to 
the ultimate excellence of American letters in the sight of the mes- 
senger boy devouring his “Old Sleuths” and “Deadwood Dicks” and 
“Boy Detectives,” with an earnest , serious absorption, than in the 


Salt and Sincerity 361 

spectacle of a “reading circle” of dilettanti coquetting with Verlaine 
and pretending that they understand. 

By the same token, then, is it not better to welcome and rejoice 
over this recent “literary deluge” than to decry it? One is not 
sure it is not a matter for self-gratulation — not a thing to deplore 
and vilify. The “people” are reading, that is the point; it is not 
the point that immature, untrained writers are flooding the counters 
with their productions. The more the Plain People read the more 
they will discriminate. It is inevitable, and by and by they will 
demand “something better.” It is impossible to read a book with- 
out formulating an opinion upon it. Even the messenger boy 
can tell you that, in his judgment, No. 3,666, “The James Boys 
Brought to Bay,” is more or less — as the case may be — exciting 
than No. 3,667, “The Last of the Fly-by-Nights.” Well, that is 
something. Is it not better than that the same boy should be 
shooting craps around the corner? Take his dime novel from 
him, put him in the “No Book” condition — and believe me, he 
will revert to the craps. And so it is higher up the scale. In the 
name of American literature, let the Plain People read, anything — 
anything, whether it is three days or three years old. Mr. Car- 
negie will not educate the public taste by shutting his libraries upon 
recent fiction. The public taste will educate itself by much read- 
ing, not by restricted reading. “Books have never done harm,” 
Victor Hugo said it, and a bad book — that is to say, a poor, cheap, 
ill-written, “trashy” book — is not after all so harmful as “no book” 
at all. 

Later on, when the people have learned discrimination by much 
reading, it will not be necessary to bar fiction not three years old 
from the libraries, for by then the people will demand the “some- 
thing better,” and the writers will have to supply it — or disappear, 
giving place to those who can, and then the literary standards will 
be raised. 


P— IV — Norris 


362 


Essays on Authorship 


II 

In a recent number of his periodical, the editor of “Harper’s 
Weekly” prints a letter received from a gentleman who deplores the 
fact that the participants in the Harvard- Yale track teams are given 
a great place in the daily newspapers while — by implication — his 
son, an arduous student and winner of a “Townsend prize,” is 
completely and definitely ignored. “I could not but think of my 
son,” writes the gentleman, “a Yale Senior who, as one of the 
results of nine years’ devotion to study, won a Townsend prize.” 
One will ask the reader to consider this last statement. The pub- 
licity of the college athletes is not the point here. The point is 
“nine years’ devotion to study” and — “a Townsend prize.” Nine 
years — think of it — the best, the most important of a boy’s life given 
to devoted study! — not of Men, not of Life, not of Realities, but 
of the books of Other People, mere fatuous, unreasoned, pig-headed 
absorption of ideas at second hand. And the result? Not a well- 
ordered mind, not a well-regulated reasoning machine, not a power 
of appreciation, not an ability to create. None of these, but — 
Great Heavens! — a Townsend Prize , a rectangular piece of the 
skin of a goat, dried and cured and marked with certain signs and 
symbols by means of a black pigment; this and a disk of the same 
metal the Uganda warrior hangs in his ears. A Townsend Prize. 
And for this a young American living in the twentieth century, 
sane, intelligent, healthful, has pored over Other People’s books, 
has absorbed Other People’s notions, has wearied his brain, has 
weakened his body, has shut himself from the wide world, has 
denied himself, has restrained himself, has stultified emotion, has in 
a word buried his talent in the earth wrapped carefully in a napkin. 
“And,” comments the editor, “the boy who won the Townsend 
prize for scholarship, if he keeps on, will some day be honored by 
his fellow-men, when the athletic prize-winner, if he does nothing 
else, will be a director of a gymnasium. The serious worker comes 
out ahead every time.” But winning Townsend prizes by nine 
years of study is, we submit, not serious work, but serious misuse 
of most valuable time and energy. Scholarship? Will we never 


Salt and Sincerity 363 

learn that times change and that sauce for the Renaissance goose 
is not sauce for the New Century gander? It is a fine thing, this 
scholarship, no doubt; but if a man be content with merely this 
his scholarship is of as much use and benefit to his contemporaries 
as his deftness in manicuring his finger nails. The United States 
in this year of grace nineteen hundred and two does not want and ^ 
does not need Scholars, but Men — Men made in the mold of the 
Leonard Woods and the Theodore Roosevelts, Men such as Colonel 
Waring, Men such as Booker Washington. The most brilliant 
scholarship attainable by human effort is not, to-day, worth nine 
years of any young man’s life. I think it is Nathaniel Hawthorne 
who tells the story of a “scholar” who one day, when a young 
man, found the tooth of a mammoth. He was a student of fossil 
remains, and in his enthusiasm set out to complete the skeleton. 

His mind filled with this one idea, to the exclusion of all else, he 
traveled up and down the world, year after year, picking up here 
a vertebra, here a femur, here a rib, here a clavicle. Years passed ; 
he came to be an old man; at last he faced death. He had suc- 
ceeded. The monstrous framework was complete. But he looked 
back upon the sixty years of his toil and saw that it was a vanity. 

He had to show for his life-work — the skeleton of a mammoth. 
And, believe this implicity: if — as the editor and commentator re- 
marks — the Townsend prize-winner keeps on, this will be the 
result, a huge thing no doubt, a thing that looms big in the eye 
and in the imagination, but an empty thing, lifeless, bloodless, dead ; 
yes, and more than dead — extinct; a mere accumulation of dry 
bones, propped up lest it fall to the ground, a thing for the wind 
to blow through and the vulgar to gape at. 

But in connection with this subject one may cite so high an 
authority as Doctor Patton of Princeton, who has recently said 
that nowadays men do not go to colleges to become scholars, and 
that it was time and money wasted to try to make them such. This 
is a good saying and should be taken to heart by every college 
faculty between the oceans. Sooner or later there is bound to 
come a fundamental change in the mode of instruction now in 
favor in most American colleges. The times demand it; the char- 
acter of the student body, the character of the undergraduate, is 
changing. One chooses to believe that the college of the end of 
the present century will be an institution where only specialized 
work will be indulged in. There will be courses in engineering, in 
electricity, in agriculture, in law, in chemistry, in biology, in mining, 


364 Essays on Authorship 

etc., and the so-called general “literary” or “classical” courses will 
be relegated to the limbo of Things No Longer Useful. Any in- 
structor in collegiate work will tell you to-day that the men in the 
special courses are almost invariably the hardest, steadiest, most seri- 
our workers. The man who studes law at :college finishes his work 
a lawyer, he who studies engineering ends an engineer, the student 
of biology graduates a biologist, the student of chemistry a chemist. 
But the student in the “literary” course does not — no, not once in a 
thousand instances — graduate a literary man. He spends the four 
years of his life over a little Greek, a little Latin, a little mathe- 
matics, a little literature, a little history, a little “theme” writing, and 
comes out — just what it would be difficult to say. But he has in 
most cases acquired a very profound distaste for the authors 
whose work he has studied in class and lecture-room. Great names 
such as those of Carlyle, Macaulay, and De Quincey are associated 
in his mind only with tedium. He never will go back to these books, 
never read with enjoyment what once was “work.” Even his con- 
scientiousness — supposing him to be animated with such a motive — 
will trap him and trick him. I do not think that I shall ever forget 
the spectacle and impression of a student in my own Alma Mater — 
a little lass of seventeen (the college was co-educational), with her 
hair still down her back and her shoes yet innocent of heels, rising 
in her place in the classroom to read before a half-hundred of raw 
boys and undeveloped girls — not three months out of the high school 
— a solemn and quite unintelligible “theme” on “The Insincerity of 
Thomas Babington Macaulay.” 

Just at the time of the present writing a controversy has been 
started in London literary circles as to the legitimacy of a reviewer 
publishing the whole or parts of the same unsigned article in two 
or more periodicals. Mr. Arthur Symons is the reviewer under 
fire, and his article a critique of the dramas of Mr. Stephen Phillips. 
It was Mr. Phillips, so we are told, who first started the protest, and 
he has found followers and champions. And on first consideration 
there does seem to be ground for complaint here. It has been as- 
sumed that the first publisher of the article has a right to expect 
that for the money he pays to the writer this latter shall give to him 
all he has to say upon the subject. If he has very much to say — 
enough for another article — is it not the duty of the scribe to con- 
dense and compact so that the matter may be represented as a unit 
and not as a fragment ? Moreover, does it seem fair to Mr. Phillips 
that three reviews — as was the case — all unfavorable, should ap- 


Salt and Sincerity 365 

pear in as many publications, thus giving to the public the impres- 
sion that a group of critics, instead of merely one, was hostile to his 
work ? Lastly, it has been urged that it is not honest to sell a thing 
twice — that if a horse has been sold by A to B, A can not sell it 
again to C. 

But none of the objections seems valid. If the space allotted 
to the article in the paper is not sufficient, that is the fault of the 
editor, not the writer. The editor pays only for what he prints: 
the surplusage is still the author’s property and can be by him dis- 
posed of as such. As for the public considering the single — unfa- 
vorable — review as the opinions of three men, and as such unfair to 
Mr. Phillips, this as well is inadequate and incompetent. Another 
critic, reviewing Mr. Phillips favorably, is just as much at libery 
to split up his work as the adverse reviewer. Last of all, it is under 
certain circumstances perfectly honest to sell the same thing twice. 
Articles, stories, poems and the like are continually syndicated in 
hundreds of newspapers simultaneously, and in this sense are sold 
over and over again. The analogy between the sale of a horse and 
the sale of a bit of literature is quite misleading. For the matter 
of that, the writer does not sell the actual concrete manuscript of 
his work, but merely the right to print it, and unless the word “ex- 
clusively” is understood in the agreement he is in no wise bound. 
The writer is not selling his copy as the owner sells his horse. The 
analogy would be true if A sold to B the use of the horse. When B 
had got the “use” out of the animal no one will deny the right of 
A to sell the same “use” to C, D, E, and so on through the whole 
alphabet. The reviewer of books has a hard enough time of it as it 
is. It is only fair to give him the same freedom as a livery stable 
keeper. 

It has often occurred to me as a thing of some importance and 
certain significance that all great travelers are great writers. And 
the fact is so well established, the effect flows so invariably from the 
cause, that there would seem to be here a matter for reflection. One 
affirms and will maintain that the one is the direct result of the 
other, that the faculty of adequate expression, of vivid presentation, 
of forceful and harmonious grouping of words, is engendered and 
stimulated and perfected by wide journeying. 

This is not at all an orthodox view, not at all the theory cher- 
ished by our forebears. The writer, according to unvarying belief, 
is the man of the closet, the bookish man, a student, a sedentary, a 
•consumer of kerosene, a reader rather than a rover. And the idea 


366 Essays on Authorship 

is plausible. The nomad, he without local habitation, has no leisure, 
no opportunity, nor even actual concrete place to write. Would it 
. not seem that literature is the quiet art, demanding an unperturbed 
i mind, an unexcited, calm, reposeful temperament ? This is a very 
defensible position, but it is based upon a foundation of sand. It 
assumes that the brain of the writer is a jar full of a precious fluid 
— a bottle full of wine to be poured out with care and with a hand 
so quiet, so restful and unshaken that not a drop be spilled. Very 
well. But when the jar, when the bottle is emptied — then what? 
Believe me, the gods give but one vintage to one man. There will 
be no refilling of the vessel ; and even the lees are very flat, be the 
wine ever so good. The better the grape, the bitterer the dregs ; and 
the outpouring of the “best that is in you” in the end will be soured 
by that brackish, fade sediment that follows upon lavish expendi- 
ture, so that the man ends ignobly and because of exhaustion and 
depletion, with all the product of his early and mature richness 
making more prominent and pitiful the final poverty and tenuity of 
his outgiving — ends the butt of critics, the compassion of the in- 
competent, a shard kicked of every scullion. 

And in all the world there is nothing more lamentable than this 
— the end of a man once strong w T ho has used himself up, but who 
decants lees and not wine. Even when the lees are spent he absorbs 
them once more and once more gives them forth, each time a little 
staler, a little thinner, a little feebler, realizing his exhaustion, yet — 
urged by some whip of fortune — forced to continue the miserable 
performance till the golden bowl be broken and the pitcher shat- 
tered at the fountain. 

But suppose the productive power of the writer be considered 
not as a golden bowl to be emptied and in the end broken, but as a 
silver cord of finest temper that only needs to be kept in tune. True, 
the cord may be stretched to the breaking point. But its end comes 
at the very height and in the very consummate fulness of its capac- 
ity, and oh, the grand world-girdling Note that it sends forth in the 
breaking! — the very soul of it at mightiest tension, the very spirit 
of it at fiercest strain. What matter the loosening or the snapping 
when so noble an Amen as that vibrates through the nations to 
sound at once the Height and the End of an entire Life — a whole 
existence concentrated into a single cry ! 

Or it may become out of tune. But this is no great matter, be- 
cause so easily remedied. The golden bowl once emptied there will 
be no refilling, but by some blessed provision of heaven nothing is 


Salt and Sincerity 367 

easier than to attune the cords of being which are also the cords — 
the silver singing cords — of expression. 

But — and here we come around once more to the point de depart 
— the silver cords once gone accordant, once jaded and slack, will 
not, can not be brought again to harmony in the closet, in the study, 
in the seclusion of the cabinet. Tinker them never so cunningly, 
never so delicately, they will not ring true for you. Thought will 
avail nothing, nor even rest, nor even relaxation. Of one’s self, one 
can not cause the Master-note to which they will respond to vibrate, 
rhe cords have been played on too much. For all your pottering 
they will yet remain a little loose, and so long as they are loose the 
deftest fingering, the most skilful touch, will produce only false 
music. 

And the deadly peril is that the cords of Life and the cords of 
expression lie so close together, are so intricately mingled, that the 
man can not always tell that the cords of expression are singing out 
of tune. Life and expression are two parts of the same instrument. 
If the whole life be out of tune, how can the man distinguish the 
false music from the true? There is a danger here, but it is not 
great. Sooner or later the conviction comes that the productive 
power is menaced. A little frankness with one’s self, a little uncom- 
promising testing of the strings, and the dissonance begins to im- 
press itself. 

And — as was said — the remedy is not to be found by the 
taking of thought, but by a heroic, drastic thrusting out from the 
grooves and cogs of the life of other men — of the life of the 
city and the comfortable stay-at-home, hour-to-hour humdrum, 
and a determined journeying out into the great wide world 
itself. 

The further afield the better. The Master-note will not be heard 
within “commuting distance of the city.” The whir of civilization 
smothers it. The click of the telegraph, the hiss of steam and the 
clatter of the printing-press drown it out. It is not always and of 
necessity a loud note. Though Nansen heard it in the thunder of 
the pack-ice of the Furthest North, it came to the ear of Stevenson 
in the lap of lazy wavelets in the hushed noonday of a South Sea 
strand. 

Travel is the only way. Travel in any direction, by any means, 
so only it be far — very, very far — is the great attuner of the listless 
cords of the writer’s instrument. For again and again and again 
his power is not a bowl to be emptied, but an instrument to be 


368 Essays on Authorship 

played on. To be of use it must be sensitive and responsive and true. 
And to be kept sensitive and responsive and true it must go once 
in so often to the great Tuner — to Nature. 

We speak of the Mountains, the Rivers, Deserts and Oceans 
as though we knew them. We know the Adirondacks from a fort- 
night in a “summer camp” ; the Rivers and the Deserts in kineto- 
scopic glimpses from the Pullman’s windows; the Ocean — God for- 
give us ! — from the beach of a “resort” or the deck of an Atlantic 
“greyhound.” And I think the gods of the Mountains, Rivers, 
Deserts, and Oceans must laugh in vast contempt of our credulity 
to suppose that we have found their secrets or heard their music in 
this timid, furtive peeping and pilfering. For such little minds as 
these the gods have inexhaustible stores of tinkling cymbals and 
sounding brasses — Brummagem ware that they sell us for the price 
of “commutation tickets” and mileage books. 

The real knowledge, the real experience that tautens and trims 
the fibres of being, that tunes the cords, is a very different matter. 
The trail and the tall ship lead to those places where the Master- 
note sounds, lead to those untracked, uncharted corners of the 
earth, and dull indeed must be the tympanum that once within ear- 
shot can not hear its majestic diapason. It sounds in the canyons of 
the higher mountains, in the plunge of streams and swirling of 
rivers yet without names — in the wildernesses, the plains, the wide- 
rimmed deserts. It sings a sonorous rhapsody in the rigging of the 
clipper ship driven by the trade winds, in the ratlines and halyards 
of South Sea schooners, and drums “reveille” on the tense, hard 
sails of the fishing-boats off the “Banks.” You can hear it in the 
cry of the lynx, the chant of the wild goose, the call of the moose, 
and in the “break” of the salmon in the deeper pools below the 
cataract. It is in the roar of the 'landslide and in the drone of the 
cicada; in the war-whoop of the savage and in the stridulating of 
crickets; in the thunder of the tempest and in the faintest breath 
of laziest zephyrs. 

And the silver cord of our creative faculty — the thing nearest 
to perfection in all the make-up of our imperfect human nature — 
responds to this Master-note with the quickness and sensitiveness 
of music mathematics; responds to it, attunes itself to it, vibrates 
with its vibration, thrills with its quivering, beats with its rhythm, 
and tautens itself and freshens itself and lives again with its great 
pure, elemental life, and the man comes back once more to the 
world of men with a true-beating heart and a true-hearing ear, so 


Salt and Sincerity 369 

that he understands once more, so that his living-, sensitive, deli- 
cately humming instrument trembles responsive to the emotions and 
impulses and loves and joys and sorrows and fears of his fellows, 
and the Man writes true and clear, and his message rings with har- 
mony and with melody, with power and with passion of the prophets 
interpreting God’s handwriting to the world of men. 


370 


Essays on Authorship 


III 

There can be no question nor reasonable doubt that the “lan- 
guage, institutions, and religion” of fiction writers are at present 
undergoing the most radical revolution in the history of literature. 
And I mean by that that the men themselves are changing — their 
characters, their attitudes toward life; even the mode and manner 
of their own life. Those who are not thus changing are decaying. 
And those others, the Great Unarrived who do not recognize the 
Change, who do not acknowledge the Revolution, will never suc- 
ceed, but will perish untimely almost before they can be said to have 
been born at all. 

Time was when the author was an aristocrat, living in seclusion, 
unspotted from the world. But the Revolution of which there is 
question here has meted out to him the fate that Revolutions usually 
prepare for Aristocrats, and his successor is, must be, must be — 
if he is to voice the spirit of the times aright, if he is to interpret 
his fellows justly — the Man of the People, the Good Citizen. 

How the novelists of the preceding generation played the Great 
Game is no matter for discussion here. Times were different then. 
One shut one’s self in the study ; one wore a velvet coat ; one read a 
great deal and quoted Latin ; one knew the classics ; one kept apart 
from the vulgar profane and never, never, never read the newspapers. 
But for the novelist of the next fifty years of this twentieth century 
these methods, these habits, this conception of literature as a cult, 
as a refinement to be kept inviolate from the shoulderings and elbow- 
ings of the Common People is a clog, is a stumbling-block, is a pit- 
fall, a bog, mire, trap — anything you like that is false, misleading 
and pernicious. 

I have no patience with a theory of literature — and, oh, how 
often one hears it preached! — that claims the Great Man belongs 
only to the cultured few. “You must write,” so these theorists 
explain, “for that small number of fine minds who because of edu- 
cation, because of delicate, fastidious taste are competent to judge.” 
I tell you this is wrong. It is precisely the same purblind prejudice 
that condemned the introduction of the printing-press because it 
would cheapen and vulgarize the literature of the day. A litera- 


Salt and Sincerity 371 

ture that can not be vulgarized is no literature at all and will 
perish just as surely as rivers run to the sea. The things that last 
are the understandable things — understandable to the common minds, 
the Plain People, understandable, one is almost tempted to say, to 
the very children. 

It is so in every branch of art : in music, painting, sculpture, ar- 
chitecture. The great monuments of these activities, the things that 
we retain longest and cherish with the most care, are plain almost 
to bareness. The most rudimentary mind can understand them. 
All the learning, all the culture, all the refinement in the world will 
not give you a greater thrill on reading your “Iliad” than the boy 
of fifteen enjoys. Is the “Marseillaise” a thing of sublety or refine- 
ment? Are the Pyramids complex? Are Angelo’s Sibyls involved? 
But the “Iliad,” the “Marseillaise,” the Pyramids, the Sibyls will 
endure and endure and endure while men have eyes to see, ears to 
hear and hearts to be moved. These great things, these monuments 
were not written nor composed, nor builded, nor painted for the 
select, for the cultured. When Homer wrote there were no reading 
circles. Rouget de Lisle gave no “recitals.” One does not have to 
“read up” to understand the message of Cheops, nor take a course 
of art lectures to feel the mystery of the Delphic Sibyl. 

And so to come back to the starting place, the Revolution in the 
character of the writer of fiction. If the modern novelist does not 
understand the Plain People, if he does not address himself directly 
to them intelligibly and simply, he will fail. But he will never un- 
derstand them by shutting himself away from them. He must be 
— and here one comes to the conclusion of the whole matter — a Man 
of the World. None more so. Books have no place in his equip- 
ment, have no right to be there ; will only cumber and confuse him. 
His predecessor never read the newspapers, but for him the news- 
paper is more valuable than all the tomes of Ruskin, all the volumes 
of Carlyle^ And more valuable than all are the actual, vital Affairs 
of Men. \ The function of the novelist of this present day is to 
comment hipon life as he sees it. He can not get away from this ; 
this is his excuse for existence, the only claim he has upon atten- 
tion. How necessary then for him — of all men — to be in the midst 
of life! He can not plunge too deeply into it. Politics will help 
him, and Religious Controversies, Explorations, Science, the newest 
theory of Socialism, the latest development of Biology. He should 
find an interest in Continental diplomacy and should have opinions 
on the chances of a Russo-Japanese war over the Corean question. 


372 Essays on Authorship 

He should be able to tell why it is of such unusual importance for 
Queen Wilhelmina of Holland to give birth to an heir, and should 
know who ought to be nominated for Governor of his native State 
at the next convention. 

No piece of information — mere downright acquisition of fact — 
need be considered worthless. Nothing is too trivial to be neg- 
lected. I know a novelist of international reputation who told me 
that the following little bits of knowledge (collected heaven knows 
where and stored up for years in some pigeon-hole of his memory) 
had been of use to him in the composition of a novel he is now at 
work upon : That great cities tend to grow to the westward ; that 
race-horses are shod with a long and narrow shoe; and that the 
usual price charged by an electrician for winding an armature is 
four dollars. And he seemed prouder of the fact that he had these 
tiny odds and ends at his command, when needed, than he was of 
the honorary degree just conferred upon him by Harvard Uni- 
versity. 

I suppose this is an exaggerated case, and it is not to be denied 
that it is better to have a Harvard degree than to know the shape 
of a race-horse’s shoe, but it surely goes to prove the point that, as 
far as actual material worth and use were concerned, the fugitive 
foolish memory-notes were of more present help than the university 
degree, and that so far as information is concerned the novelist can 
not know too much. 

In a recent number of “The Bookman” there appears an able 
article under the title “Attacking the Newspapers.” The title is a 
trifle misleading, since the author’s point and text are a defence 
of modern journalism, or rather let us say an apology. The apology 
is very well done. The manner of presentation is ingenious, the 
style amusing, but none the less one can not let the article pass 
without protest or, at the least, comment. 

The original function of a newspaper was, and still should be, 
to tell the news — and, if you please, nothing more than that. The 
“policy” of the paper was (before -the days of the yellow press) 
advocated and exploited in the editorial columns. 

The whole difficulty lies in the fact that nowadays the average 
newspaper is violently partisan and deliberately alters news to suit 
its partisanship. “Not a very criminal procedure,” I hear it said ; 
“for by reading the opposition papers the public gets the other side.” 
But one submits that such a course is criminal, and that it can be 
proved to be such. How many people do you suppose read the “op- 


Salt and Sincerity 373 

position” papers? The American newspaper readers have not time 
to read “both sides” unless presented to them in one and the same 
paper. 

Observe now how this partisanship works injustice and ruin. 
Let us suppose a given newspaper is hostile to the Governor of 
the State. Now every man — even a journalist — has a right to his 
opinions and his hostilities, and important men in public life must 
expect to be abused. There are for them compensations; their 
position is too high, too secure to be shaken by the vituperation of 
malevolent journals. But these journals have one favorite form of 
attacking important public men which, though it does not always 
harm the personage assaulted, may easily ruin the subordinates 
with which he surrounds himself. This is the habit of discrediting 
the statesman by defaming his appointees. The Governor, we 
will say, has appointed John Smith to be the head of a certain in- 
stitution of the State. But the Governor has incurred the enmity 
of the “Daily Clarion” — the leading newspaper. Promptly the 
“Clarion” seizes upon Smith. His career as head of the institu- 
tion has been a record of misrule (so the “Clarion” reads), has 
been characterized by extravagance, incompetency, mismanagement, 
and even misappropriation of the State's money. And here begins 
the cruel injustice of the business. The editor of that paper will 
set no bounds upon the lengths to which he will urge his reporters 
in their vilification of Smith. The editor knows he is a liar, the re- 
porters know they are liars, but the public, ninety-nine times out 
of a hundred, ignoring motives, unable to see that the real object 
of attack is the Governor, unable to understand the brute callous- 
ness and wretched hypocrisy of the whole proceeding, believes the 
calumny , believes that Smith is an incompetent, a spendthrift, even 
a thief. And even the better class of readers, even the more in- 
telligent who make allowances for the paper's political prejudices, 
will listen to the abuse and believe that there “must be some fire 
where there is so much smoke.” Do you suppose for one moment 
that Smith will ever get a hearing in that paper? Do you suppose 
its reporters will ever credit him with a single honest achievement, 
a single sincere effort? If you do, you do not understand modern 
journalism. 

Ah, but the opposition papers ! They will defend Smith. They 
will champion him as vehemently as the “Clarion” attacks. That 
is all very well, but suppose there are no opposition papers. . Pol- 
itics are very complicated. The press of a given community is not 


374 Essays on Authorship 

always equally divided between the Republican and Democratic 
parties. Time and time again it happens that all the leading news- 
papers of a city, a county, or even a State, Democratic, Republican, 
Independent, etc., are banded together to oppose some one Large 
Man. 

Where then will Smith get his hearing? He can not fight all 
the newspapers at once. He is not strong enough to retaliate even 
upon the meanest. The papers are afraid of nothing he can do. 
They hold absolute power over his good name and reputation. And 
for the sake of feeding fat the grudge they bear the Great One 
they butcher the subordinate without ruth and without reproach 
Believe me, it has been shown repeatedly that, placed in such a po- 
sition, the modern newspaper will check at no lie however mon- 
strous, at no calumny however vile. If Smith holds a position of 
trust he will be trumpeted from end to end of the community as a 
defaulter, gambling away the public moneys ihtrusted to his care. 
He will be pictured as a race-track follower, a supporter of fast 
women, a thief, a blackguard, and a reprobate. If he holds an 
administrative office, it will be shown how he has given and taken 
bribes; how he has neglected his duties and ignored his responsi- 
bilities till his office has engendered calamity, ruin, and even ac- 
tual physical suffering. If his work is in the nature of supervision 
over one of those State institutions where the helpless are cared 
for — the infirm, the imbecile, the aged, or sick, or poor — his cruelty 
to his wards will be the theme, and he will be written of and pic- 
tured as whipping or torturing old men and little children, im- 
prisoning, tormenting, making a hell of what was meant to be a 
help. 

And the man once blackened after this fashion will never again 
rehabilitate himself in the eyes of the public. The people who 
read newspapers always believe the worst, and when an entire 
press, or even the major part of it, unite to defame a man there 
is no help or redress possible. He is ruined, ruined professionally 
and financially, ruined in character, in pocket, and in the hopes of 
ever getting back the good name that once was his. 

And all this is done merely as a political move, merely to dis- 
credit the Big Man who put Smith in his place, merely to hurt his 
chances of renomination, merely to cut down the number of his 
votes. It is butchery; there is no other word than this with which 
to characterize the procedure, butchery as cruel, as wanton and as 
outrageous as ever bloodied the sands' of the Colosseum. It is 


Salt and Sincerity 375 

even worse than this, for the victim has no chance for his life. 
His hands are tied before the beasts are loosed. He is trussed 
and downed before the cages are opened, and the benches thunder 
for his life, not as for a victim to be immolated, but as a criminal 
to be punished. He is getting only his deserts, his very memory is 
an execration, and his name whenever mentioned is a by-word and 
a hissing. 

And this in face of the fact that the man may be as innocent of 
the charges urged as if he had never been born. 

Yet Doctor Colby in “The Bookman” article writes: “If we 
must attack the newspapers let it be as critics, not as crusaders, for 
the people who write for them are under no stricter obligations 
than ourselves.” What! the reporter or the editor who by some 
fillip of fortune is in a position to make public opinion in the minds 
of a million people under no more obligations than you and I ! If 
ever obligation bore down with an all but intolerable weight it is 
in just his case. His responsibility is greater than that of the Pulpit, 
greater than that of the Physician, greater than that of the Educa- 
tor. If you would see the use to which it is put, you have only to 
try to get at the real truth in the case of the next public character 
assailed and vilified in the public prints. 

Doctor Colby is wrong. It is a crusade and not a criticism that 
will put down the modern yellow newspaper from the bad eminence 
to which the minds of the hysterical, of the violent, of the ignorant, 
brutal and unscrupulous have exalted it. 


376 


Essays on Authorship 


IV 

There is a certain journal of the Middle West of the United 
States which has proclaimed, with a great flourish of trumpets, that 
Mme. Humbert of Paris would have made a great “fictionist” 
if she had not elected to become a great swindler. This is that 
Mme. Humbert who cheated a number of bankers, capitalists and 
judges out of a great deal of money with a story of $20,000,000 
in a safe which for certain reasons she could not open. Very 
naturally, when her hand was forced the safe was empty. And this 
person, the Middle West paper claims, is a great novelist manque e, 
“a female Dumas or Hugo.” The contention would not be worthy of 
notice were it not for the fact that it is an opinion similar to that 
held by a great number of people intelligent enough to know better. 
In a word, it is the contention that the personal morality of the 
artist (including “fictionists”) has nothing to do with his work, 
and that a great rascal may be a good painter, good musician, good 
novelist. With painters, musicians and the like this may or may 
not be true. With the novelist one contends, believes and avers that 
it is absolutely and unequivocally false, and that the mind capable 
of theft, of immorality, of cruelty, of foulness, or falseness of any 
kind is incapable, under any circumstances, or by any degree of 
stimulation, of producing one single important, artistic or useful 
piece of fiction. The better the personal morality of the writer, the 
better his writings. Tolstoi, for instance : it is wholly and solely due 
to the man’s vast goodness and philanthropy that his novels carry 
weight. The attitude of the novelist toward his fellow-men and 
women is the great thing, not his inventiveness, his ingenuity, his 
deftness, or glibness, or verbal dexterity. And the mind wholly 
mean, who would rob a friend of $40,000 (after the manner of the 
Humbert person), or could even wilfully and deliberately mar the 
pleasure of a little child, could never assume toward the world at 
large that attitude of sympathy and generosity and toleration that 
is the first requisite of the really great novelist. Always you will 
find this thing true: that the best, the greatest writers of fiction 
are those best loved of troops of friends ; and for the reason that, 


Salt and Sincerity 377 

like the Arab philosopher of the poem, they, first of all, have “loved 
their fellow-men.” It is this that has made their novels great. Con- 
sider Stevenson, or our own “Dean,” or Hugo, or Scott, men of 
the simplest lives, uncompromising in rectitude, scrupulously, punc- 
tiliously, Quixotically honest; their morality — surely in the cases 
of Stevenson and Hugo — setting a new standard of religion, at 
the least a new code of ethics. And thus it goes right down the 
line, from the greater lights to the lesser and to the least. It is 
only the small men, the “minor” people among the writers of 
books who indulge in eccentricities that are only immoralities under 
a different skin; who do not pay their debts; who borrow without 
idea of returning; who live loose, “irregular,” wretched, vicious 
lives, and call it “Bohemianism,” and who believe that “good 
work” can issue from the turmoil, that the honeycomb will be found 
in the carcass, and the sweet come forth from the putrid. So 
that in the end one may choose to disagree with the Middle West 
editor and to affirm tnat it is not the ingenious criminal who is the 
novelist manque , but the philanthropist, the great educator, the 
great pulpit orator, the great statesman. It is from such stuff that 
the important novels are made, not from the deranged lumber and 
disordered claptrap of the brain of a defective. 

In the course of a speech made at a recent dinner given in 
London, Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace has deplored the fact that 
our present generation of English writers has produced no worthy 
successors to the great men of the mid-Victorian period — that there 
are no names to place beside Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, Browning, 
or Keats. But he also brought forward extenuating circumstances, 
chief among which was the fact that the novelists of to-day were 
working overtime to supply the demands of an ever-increasing 
public, and that, by implication, their work was therefore deteri- 
orating. One does not believe that this is so. Rapid work may 
cause the deterioration of a commercial article, but it by no means 
follows that the authors who are called upon to produce a very 
large number of books are forced into the composition of unworthy 
literature. The writer’s brain does not hold the material for his 
books. It is not like a storehouse, from which things may be taken 
till nothing remains. The writer’s material is life itself, inex- 
haustible and renewed from day to day, and his brain is only the 
instrument that adapts life to fiction. True, this instrument itself 
may wear out after a while, but it usually lasts as long as the man 
himself, and is good for more work than the unthinking would be- 


jyB Essays on Authorship 

lieve possible. As a matter of fact, the best novelists have, as a 
rule, been the most prolific, have been those who had to write rapidly 
and much to satisfy, if not the demands of the public, then at least 
other more personal demands, none the less insistent. Scott and 
Dickens were unusually prolific, yet the rapidity with which they 
accomplished their work did not hurt the quality of the work itself. 
Balzac and Dumas produced whole libraries of books and yet kept 
their standards high. As one has urged before, it is the demand 
of the People that produces the great writer, not reduces the 
quality and fineness of his work. If he has the “divine spark,” the 
breath of the millions will fan rather than extinguish it. 

One does not choose to believe that the art of fiction nor the 
standards of excellence have deteriorated since the day of Scott, 
Dickens and Thackeray. True, we have no men to equal them as 
yet, but they are surely coming. Time was, at the end of the 
seventeenth century, when the dearth of good fiction was even more 
marked than at present. But one must bear in mind that progress 
is never along a direct line, but by action and reaction. A period 
will supervene when a group of geniuses arise, and during the course 
of their activities the average of excellence is high, great books are 
produced, and a whole New Literature is launched. Their influence 
is profound; the first subschool of imitators follow good enough 
men but second-rate. These in turn are followed by the third- 
raters, and these by the fourth-raters, and no one is found bold 
enough to strike out for himself until the bottom is reached. Then 
comes the reaction, and once more the group of giants towers up 
from out the mass. We are probably living through the era of the 
fourth-raters just now, and one believes that we are rather near to 
the end even of that. The imitators of the romantic school have 
imitated to ten places decimals and have diluted and rediluted till 
they can hardly go further without producing something actually 
and really new. At any rate, the time is most propitious for a Man 
of Iron who can be bent to no former shape nor diluted to no old- 
time essence. Then will come the day of the New Literature, and 
the wind of Life itself will blow through the dry bones and fustian 
and sawdust of the Imitation, and the People will all at once realize 
how very far afield the fourth-raters have drawn them and how 
very different a good novel is from a bad one. 

For say what you will, the People, the Plain People who Read, 
do appreciate good literature in the end. One must keep one's 
faith in the People — the Plain People, the Burgesses, the Grocers — 


Salt and Sincerity 37^ 

else of all men the artists are most miserable and their teachings 
vain. Let us admit and concede that this belief is ever so sorely 
tried at times. Many thousands of years ago the wisest man of his 
age declared that “the People imagine a vain thing.” Continually 
they are running away after strange gods; continually they are 
admiring the fake and neglecting actual worth. But in the end, 
and at last, they will listen to the true note and discriminate be- 
tween it and the false. In the last analysis the People are always 
right. Somehow, and after all is said and done, they will prefer 
Walter Scott to G. P. R. James, Shakespeare to Marlowe, Flaubert 
to Goncourt. Sometimes the preference is long in forming, and 
during this formative period they have many reversions, and go gal- 
loping, in herds of one hundred or one hundred and fifty thousand 
(swelling the circulations), after false gods. But note this fact: 
that the fustian and the tinsel and the sawdust are discovered very 
soon, and, the discovery once made, the sham idol can claim no 
single devotee. 

In other words, it is a comfort to those who take the literature 
of the American — or even of the Anglo-Saxon — seriously to re- 
member, in the long run and the larger view, that a circulation of 
two hundred, three hundred or four hundred thousand — judging 
even by this base-scale of “copies sold” — is not so^ huge after all. 
Consider. A “popular” novel is launched and sells its half-million. 
Within a certain very limited period of time, at most five years, 
this sale stops definitely and conclusively. The People have found 
out that it is not such a work of genius after all, and will have no 
more of it. 

But how about the circulation of the works of the real Mas- 
ters, Scott and Dickens, say — to be more concrete, let us speak 
of “Ivanhoe” and “David Copperfield” — have not each of these 
“sold” more than two hundred thousand since publication ? Is not 
two hundred million nearer the mark? And they are still selling. 
New editions are published every year. Does not this prove that the 
People are discriminating; that they are — after all — preferring the 
best literature to the mediocre; that they are not such a mindless 
herd after all; that in the end, in fine, they are always right? It 
will not do to decry the American public; to say that it has no 
taste, no judgment; that it “likes to be fooled.” It may be led away 
for a time by clamorous advertising and the “barking” of fakirs. 
But there comes a day when it will no longer be fooled. A million 
dollars’ worth of advertising would not to-day sell a hundred thou- 


380 Essays on Authorship 

sand copies of “Trilby.” But “Ivanhoe” and “Copperfield,” with- 
out advertising, without reclames for exploitation, are as market- 
able this very day as a sack of flour or a bag of wheat. 

Mr. Metcalfe, in a recent issue of “Life,” has been lamenting the 
lack of good plays on the American stage during the past season, 
and surely no one can aver that the distinguished critic is not right. 
One can not forbear a wince or two at the thought of what future 
art historians will say in their accounts of the American drama at 
the beginning of the twentieth century. Frankly and unreservedly 
the native American drama is just about as bad as it can be, and 
every intelligent-minded person is quite willing to say so. The 
causes are not difficult to trace. Two come to the mind at once, 
which in themselves alone would account for the degeneracy — i. e. f 
the rage for Vaudeville and the exploitation of the Star. The first 
has developed in the last ten years, an importation from English 
music halls. Considered at first as a fad by the better class of 
theatre-goers, a thing to be countenanced with amused toleration like 
performing bears and the animal circus, it has been at length 
boosted and foisted upon the public attention till, like a veritable can- 
cer, it has eaten almost into the very vitals of the Legitimate Com- 
edy (using the word in its technical sense). Continually nowadays 
one may see a “specialty” — generally in the form of a dance — lugged 
in between the scenes of a perfectly sober, perfectly sane Comedy 
of Manners. The moment any one subordinate feature of a dramatic 
action is developed at the expense of vraisemblance and the Proba- 
bilities, and for the sake of amusing the galleries, there is the first 
bacillus of decay. Vaudeville is all very well by itself, and one will 
even go so far as to admit that it has its place as much as an Ibsen 
problem-play. But it should keep to that place. It is -ludicrously 
out of place in a comedy — quite as much so as the “Bible Incident” 
in “Ebbsmith” would be in a Hoyt farce. But because the “specialty” 
because Vaudeville, will “go” with the “gallery” at any time and at 
any place, the manager and — the pity of it! — the author, too, will 
introduce it whenever the remotest possibility occurs, and by just 
so much the tone of the whole drama is lowered. It has got to such 
a pass by now, however, that one ought to be thankful if this same 
“tone” is not keyed down to the specialty. 

But the exploiting of the Star, it would seem, is, of all others, 
the great cause of the mediocrity of present-day dramatic litera- 
ture. One has but to glance at the theatre programmes and bills to 
see how matters stand. The name of the leading lady or leading 


Salt and Sincerity 381 

man is “scare-headed” so that the swiftest runner can not fail to 
see. Even the manager proclaims his patronymic in enormous 
“caps.” But the author! — as often as not his name is not discov- 
erable at all. The play is nothing — thus it would seem the man- 
agers would have us believe — it is the actress, her speeches, her 
scenes, her gowns, her personality, that are the all-important essen- 
tials. It is notorious how plays are cut, and readjusted, and dislo- 
cated to suit the Star. Never mind whether or not the scene is 
artistic, is vivid, is dramatic. Does the Star get the best of it? 
If not, write it over. The Star must have all the good lines. If 
they can not be built into the Star's part, cut 'em out. The Proba- 
bilities, the construction, artistic effect, climax, even good, com- 
mon, forthright horse sense, rot ’em ! who cares for ’em ? Give 
the Star the lime-light — that’s the point. 

If the audience is willing to pay its money to see Miss Marlowe, 
Miss Mannering, or Mrs. Carter put through her paces, that’s an- 
other thing; but let us not expect that good dramas will issue forth 
from this state of affairs. 

Where are the Books for Girls? Adults’ books there are and 
books for boys by the carload, but where is the book for the young 
girls? Something has already been said about literature for the 
amiable young woman, but this, now, is a very different person. 
One means the girl of fourteen to eighteen. The boy passing 
through this most trying formative period finds his literature ready 
to hand. Boys’ books, tales of hunting, adventure and sport abound. 
They are good books, too, sane, “healthy,” full of fine spirit and 
life. But the girl, where does she read? Surely the years between 
fourteen and eighteen are even more trying to a young girl than 
to a boy. She is not an active animal. When the boy is out-of- 
doors, pitching curves or “running the ends,” the girl (even yet 
in the day and age of “athletics for women”) is in the house, and, 
as like as not, reading. And reading what, if you please? The 
feeblest, thinnest, most colorless lucubrations that it is given to the 
mind of misguided man to conceive or to perpetuate. It must be this 
or else the literature of the adult; and surely the novels written for 
mature minds, for men and women who have some knowledge of 
the world and powers of discrimination, are not good reading, in 
any sense of the word, for a sixteen-year-old girl in the formative 
period of her life. 

Besides Alcott, no one has ever written intelligently for girls. 
Surely there is a field here. Surely a Public, untried and unex- 


3 82 Essays on Authorship 

plored, is waiting for its author ; nor is it a public wanting in enthu- 
siasm, loyalty or intelligence. 

But for all this great parade and prating of emancipated women 
it nevertheless remains a fact that the great majority of twentieth- 
century opinion is virtually Oriental in its conception of the young 
girl. The world to-day is a world for boys, men and women. Of 
all humans, the young girl, the sixteen-year-old, is the least im- 
portant — or, at least, is so deemed. Wanted : a Champion. Wanted : 
the Discoverer and Poet of the Very Young Girl. Unimportant 
she may now appear to you, who may yet call her by her first name 
without fear and without reproach. But remember this, you who 
believe only in a world of men and boys and women; the Very 
Young Girl of to-day is the woman of to-morrow, the wife of the 
day after, and the mother of next week. She only needs to put 
up her hair and let down her frocks to become a very important 
person indeed. Meanwhile, she has no literature; meanwhile, faute 
de mieux, she is trying to read Ouida and many other books in- 
tended for maturer minds ; or, worse than all, she is enfeebling her 
mind by the very thin gruel purveyed by the mild-mannered gentle- 
men and ladies who write for the Sunday-school libraries. Here 
is a bad business; here is a field that needs cultivation. All very 
well to tend and train the saplings, the oaks and the vines. The 
flowers — they have not bloomed yet — are to be thought about, too. 

All the more so that the young girls takes a book to heart in- 
finitely more than a boy. The boy — his story once read — votes it 
“bully, ” takes down his cap, and there’s an end. But the average 
Very Young Girl does not read her story: she lives it, lingers over 
it, weeps over it, lies awake nights over it. So long as she lives 
she will never quite forget the books she read when she was six- 
teen. It is not too much to say that the “favorite” books of a girl 
at this age become a part of her life. They influence her character 
more than any of us, I imagine, would suspect or admit. All the 
more reason, then, that there should not only be good books for girls, 
but plenty of good books. 


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